prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty…”197 Not only were children interviewed by Human Rights Watch rarely granted their right to assistance, but authorities’ policy of transferring children to detention centers in the Evros border region reduces the likelihood of exercising this right down to almost zero. Very few pro bono workers are available in Greece and those, as well as NGO service providers, are rarely able to travel to the Evros region. Both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) prohibit the arbitrary detention of children.198 The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, defined detention as arbitrary, amongst other things, “when it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty,” or if detention “is of such gravity as to give the deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character.”199 The UN Human Rights Committee, which oversees implementation of the ICCPR, has examined the practice of indefinite detention of asylum seekers in Australia.200 The Committee emphasized that the concept of arbitrariness should not be equated with “against the law” but must also include such elements as “inappropriateness and injustice.” It noted that to avoid being arbitrary, detention should not continue beyond the period for which a State can provide appropriate justification. It also pointed out that detention could be considered arbitrary if “it is not necessary in all 197 CRC, art. 37(d). 198 CRC, art. 37(b); ICCPR, art.9(1). Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights equally prohibits arbitrary detention, yet a coherent definition of what arbitrariness entails has not been put forward. See Nuala Mole, Asylum and the European Convention on Human Rights, Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, Fourth edition, July 2008, p. 81. European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 213 U.N.T.S. 222, entered into force September 3, 1953, as amended by Protocols No. 3, 5, 8, and 11 which entered into force on September 21, 1970, December 20, 1971, January 1, 1990, and November 1, 1998, respectively, ratified by Greece on November 28, 1974. 199 Ibid. Additional circumstances that make a detention arbitrary include the detention of persons because they exercised other Convention rights, the denial of the right to fair trial, or, where detention is of such a grave nature that it possesses an arbitrary character. See Nuala Mole, Asylum and the European Convention on Human Rights, p. 81. 200 Decisions of the Human Rights Committee, A v. Australia No 560/1993, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/59/D/560/1993 (1997); C v. Australia No 900/1999, op.cit.; Baban v. Australia No 1014/2001, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/78/D/1014/2001 (2003) , Bakhtiyari v. Australia, U.N. Doc CCPR/C/79/D/1069/2002 (2003). 63 Human Rights Watch December 2008