A Guide in Support of the Children & International Criminal Justice Conference: Home

The use of children as soldiers in armed conflicts has been universally condemned as abhorrent and unacceptable. Yet, over the last decade, hundreds of thousands of children have fought and died in conflicts around the world. Children are frequently killed or injured during combat or while carrying out other tasks. They are forced to engage in hazardous activities, such as laying mines or explosives, as well as using weapons. Child soldiers are usually forced to live under harsh conditions with insufficient food and little or no access to healthcare. They are almost always treated brutally, subjected to beatings and humiliating treatment. Punishments for mistakes or desertion are often very severe. Girl soldiers are particularly at risk of rape, sexual harassment, and abuse. This book examines recent case law, developments, and actions being taken by the international community on behalf of these victims of wars.

Children and young persons are increasingly being targeted for trafficking, sexual exploitation, recruitment as child soldiers, and other abuses. Children prove to be particularly vulnerable in situations of armed conflict, such as Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines, Nepal, and Colombia. A rich combination of practitioners (including ICC, ICTY and SCSL prosecutors) and academics explore to what extent international law instruments and international criminal accountability mechanisms are useful for countering violations of children's rights during and after armed conflicts. They also analyze to what extent the tendency of profiling children's rights much more strongly than before (mainly under the umbrella of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in the form of child rights-based approaches) converges with the features of international criminal accountability mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court, the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

The system of the United Nations, as well as many international and regional bodies, imposes various duties on states that consequently have obligations towards the rights of their individuals. This is particularly significant in the case of children who are not only considered one of the most valuable subjects of international regulations, but are also an integral part of the legislation of domestic laws. This book examines many different areas within the law which deal with the specific rights of children such as the philosophy of law, civil law, social law, tax law, criminal law, procedural law, international law, human rights law and the humanitarian law of armed conflict. The intention is to show that there are many rules, provisions, norms, and principles within various areas of the law that relate to the rights of children. The extent of these rights implies the existence of certain regions of law which have to be acknowledged and respected by national authorities. However, the acknowledgement of rights is also a matter of intention, and may be implied or expressed by the practice of authorities. The question of the child constituting a self-ruling subject of justice and its legal ability to create an independent individual legal personality for the protection of its rights, but not necessarily for the exercise of those rights, are the central issues of this book.

The international community's efforts to halt child soldiering have yielded some successes. But this pernicious practice persists. It may shift locally, but it endures globally. Preventative measures therefore remain inadequate. Former child soldiers experience challenges readjusting to civilian life. Reintegration is complex and eventful. The homecoming is only the beginning. Reconciliation within communities afflicted by violence committed by and against child soldiers is incomplete. Shortfalls linger on the restorative front. Still, conversations about child soldiers mostly involve the same story, told over and over, and repeat the same assumptions, over and over. Current humanitarian discourse sees child soldiers as passive victims, tools of war, vulnerable, psychologically devastated, and not responsible for their violent acts. This perception has come to suffuse international law and policy. Although reflecting much of the lives of child soldiers, this portrayal also omits critical aspects. This book pursues an alternate path by reimagining the child soldier. It approaches child soldiers with a more nuanced and less judgmental mind. It offers a way to think about child soldiers that would invigorate international law, policy, and best practices. Where does this reimagination lead? Not toward retributive criminal trials, but instead toward restorative forms of justice. Toward forgiveness instead of excuse, thereby facilitating reintegrationand promoting social repair within afflicted communities. Toward a better understanding of child soldiering, without which the practice cannot be ended. This book also offers fresh thinking on related issues, ranging from juvenile justice, to humanitarian interventions, to the universality of human rights, to the role of law in responding to mass atrocity.

This volume constitutes a commentary on Article 40 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is part of the series, A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides an article by article analysis of all substantive, organizational and procedural provisions of the CRC and its two Optional Protocols. For every article, a comparison with related human rights provisions is made, followed by an in-depth exploration of the nature and scope of State obligations deriving from that article. The series constitutes an essential tool for actors in the field of children's rights, including academics, students, judges, grassroots workers, governmental, non- governmental and international officers. The series is sponsored by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office.

This volume constitutes a commentary on Article 38 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is part of the series, A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides an article by article analysis of all substantive, organizational and procedural provisions of the CRC and its two Optional Protocols. For every article, a comparison with related human rights provisions is made, followed by an in-depth exploration of the nature and scope of State obligations deriving from that article. The series constitutes an essential tool for actors in the field of children s rights, including academics, students, judges, grassroots workers, governmental, non- governmental and international officers. The series is sponsored by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office.

The first major case before the International Criminal Court is the appalling situation in northern Uganda where Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army abducted thousands, many of them children, and systematically tortured, raped, maimed and killed them. This book argues that much of the antipathy to the ICC is based upon ignorance and misconception. Drawing on field research in Uganda, it shows that victims are much more interested in punitive international justice than has been suggested, and that the ICC has made resolution of the war more likely.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of the most highly ratified human rights treaties in the world, with 192 states currently signed up to it. Article Twelve is fundamental to the Convention and states that all children capable of forming views have the right to express those views, and recognizes that all children have the right to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting them. This book explores the historical and theoretical background to Article Twelve, and examines the various models of participation which have been created to facilitate a better understanding of this provision. Aisling Parkes analyzes the extent to which Article Twelve has been implemented under international law, and in domestic law, as well as setting-out recommendations for the most effective ways of implementing Article Twelve in all areas of children's lives.

International Child Law examines and discusses the international legal framework and issues relating to children at both a global and regional level. Analysing both public and private international legal aspects, this cross-disciplinary text promotes an understanding of the ongoing development of child law and the protection of the child.

While a more traditional approach to international law and armed conflict focuses on the use of force and international humanitarian law, this book incorporates other international legal regimes such as human rights law, international private law, international criminal law, environmental law, as well as regional and national legal regimes. In doing so, a broader picture emerges and reveals the current challenges faced by lawyers in regulating armed conflicts. This in turn highlights the complexities, intricacies, and the interrelationship of the different regimes that may be rendered applicable to armed conflicts. Also, in taking a more inclusive approach, this book provides a new perspective on both existing and emerging themes in this field. The topics covered in this book include privatisation of warfare, protection of the environment, use of natural resources to support armed conflicts, involvement of children in armed conflicts, the relationship between peace, security and justice.

The book contains four studies that consider the challenges of implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child in different legal traditions or systems: common law, civil law, Islamic law, and plural legal systems. Each study is unique in the way it presents the particularities of the legal tradition under examination and reflects the author's own approach to the subject. The book demonstrates how the CRC can be implemented to achieve children's rights in different country contexts.

This eminently practical book provides text and expert commentary on all international Conventions that bear directly on the rights of the child. The legal issues covered include, among others, the child and immigration, intercountry adoption, international child abduction, human rights, armed conflict, and maintenance moneys. It is the first book ever to bring together Conventions that can be realistically relied upon in domestic courts, helping practitioners to avoid the pitfall of being deemed academic or distant from legal realities. Drawing on his extensive in-court experience, Jeremy Rosenblatt shows exactly how each Convention may be used to remind courts and judges of their obligations of an international nature, whether or not such Conventions have been incorporated into the domestic system. Among the Conventions presented and discussed, insofar as they bear on children's rights, are the Dublin Convention, the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption 1993, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Brussels and Lugano Conventions. The author shows how to ensure uniform processes for the protection of the rights of the child everywhere by invoking respective and uniform Conventions that are directly applicable in individual jurisdictions as a result of legal systems globally owning competence and legal comity with one another.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, passed in 1989, was the first universal treaty dedicated solely to the promotion and protection of the interests of children. In its first decade the Convention achieved near-universal ratification and is now the most widely ratified human rights treaty ever. In addition, as a consequence of its influence, children's human rights have been mainstreamed and are now prioritised at all levels within the United Nations and other regional organisations. This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the first decade of the Convention. It also brings together leading scholars and activists who place the Convention in a wider context and revisit contemporary debates and controversies in children's rights to assess the extent to which these issues have been influenced by the Convention in its first decade.

Over twenty years after the 1989 UN General Assembly vote to open the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for signature and ratification by UN member states, the United States remains one of only two UN members not to have ratified it. The other is Somalia. Child Rights: The Movement, International Law, and Opposition explores the reasons for this resistance. It details the objections that have arisen to accepting this legally binding international instrument, which presupposes indivisible universal civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, and gives children special protection due to their vulnerability. The resistance ranges from isolationist attitudes toward international law and concerns over the fiscal impact of implementation, to the value attached to education in a faith tradition and fears about the academic deterioration of public education. The contributors to the book reveal the significant positive influence that the CRC has had, despite not being ratified, on subjects such as educational research, child psychology, development ethics, normative ethics, and anthropology. The book also explores the growing homeschooling trend, which is often evangelically led in the US, but which is at loggerheads with an equally growing social science-based movement of experts and ethicists pressing for greater autonomy and freedom of expression for children. Looking beyond the US, the book also addresses some of the practical obstacles that have emerged to implementing the CRC in both developed countries (for example, Canada and the United Kingdom) and in poorer nations. This book, polemical and yet balanced, helps the reader evaluate both positive and the negative implications of this influential piece of international legislation from a variety of ethical, legal, and social science perspectives.  

This work is the first global analysis of national minimum ages of criminal responsibility, the international legal obligations that surround them and the principal considerations for establishing and implementing respective age limits.