152 C. SANDELOWSKY-BOSMAN AND T. LIEFAARD also possible that these children are traumatised because they have become accustomed to brutalities, perhaps lowering their threshold for the use of violence.82 Nevertheless, the threat posed by most of these children does not appear to be considerable.83 After all, more than half are only four years old or younger.84 Still, when it comes to possibly dangerous children, an explicit and thus transparent balance of interests should also be carried out as a basis for this policy. Ultimately, in accordance with the CRC in General Comment No 14, a child’s best interests has to be established for each individual case.85 This enables a better distinction to be made between different children and the risk they might represent to the interests of others and society as a whole, taking account of the heterogeneous character of the group. 4.3. Is the right to return also a right to be retrieved? The right of children with ties to the Netherlands to return to the Netherlands to be reunited with family on the grounds of UNCRC Article 10(1) is a right that – in view of the text of the Article – must be respected beyond the borders of a State’s own territory. The right to return is rooted in older human rights instruments.86 On the grounds of Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is forbidden to subject a person to exile. Article 3(2) of the fourth Protocol of the ECHR87 provides that no person can be forbidden from entering the territory of the State of which he or she has citizenship. On the grounds of Article 4 of the ICCPR, it is not permissible to arbitrarily deprive a person of the right to return to their own country. The question is to what extent reuniting family members more broadly, also falls within this right. It is likely that most of the children are still staying in the vicinity of one or both parents in Syria, Iraq and Turkey. In General Comment No 14, the CRC makes it clear that the preservation of the family situation should be understood in a broader sense than just the child–parent(s) relationship.88 It is not clear here whether the CRC also means the reunification of family, including for instance grandparents. This right is not only relevant for the Dutch children (irrespective of whether they can prove their Dutch nationality), but also for those children who only have ties to the Netherlands. It is also not important whether they have been to the Netherlands before.89 The UN Human Rights Committee states on the right to return: The wording of article 12, paragraph 4, does not distinguish between nationals and aliens (‘no one’). Thus, the persons entitled to exercise this right can be identified only by interpreting the meaning of the phrase ‘his own country’. The scope of ‘his own country’ is broader than the concept ‘country of his nationality’. It is not limited to nationality in a formal sense, that is, nationality acquired at birth or by conferral; it embraces, at the very least, an individual 82 NCTV and AIVD (n 24) 16. See ‘KNVIR Spring Meeting: The Children of the Caliphate and International Law’ (Royal Netherlands Society of International Law (KNVIR), 13 June 2018) <www.knvir.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Report-13-June-KNVIR-Children-ofthe-Caliphate-FINAL.pdf > accessed 28 May 2020. 84 Section 2.2 above. 85 See CRC Committee (n 81) 32. 86 Flavia Zorzi Giustiniani, ‘The Obligations of the State of Origin of Refugees: An Appraisal of a Traditionally Neglected Issue’ (2015) 30 Connecticut Journal of International Law 171. 87 The Netherlands ratified this Protocol in 1982. This right is absolute: D’Oliveira (n 25). 88 CRC Committee (n 81) 60. 89 UN Human Rights Committee, CCPR General Comment No 27: Article 12 (Freedom of Movement) (1999) 19. 83