Child Soldiers in International Law

Erscheinungsjahr 2005
ISBN: 978-1-929446-64-3
Verlag: Juris

Buch, Englisch, 185 Seiten

Can the use of children as soldiers be effectively regulated at an international level? Child Soldiers in International Law examines how international law has developed to deal with this problematic and emotive issue.

Happold looks at the rules restricting the recruitment of children into armed forces - rules which, though important, are often flouted - but also at the wider legal issues arising from child soldiering: to what extent can child soldiers be held criminally liable for their conduct? How should they be treated when captured? How are states obliged to demobilise and reintegrate them into their societies? It also identifies a move away towards enforcement, through the prosecution of those who recruit child soldiers, and proposals for Security Council sanctions against governments and groups who breach their international obligations by using children in armed conflicts.

This study will be essential reading for those concerned with public international law, human rights, and the United Nations and peacekeeping.

Praise for Child Soldiers in International Law

"It is an important reference source for anyone, whether in academia, policy or advocacy, working on the child soldier issue."
— Journal of Peace Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Happold, Matthew

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

1. Child soldiers in the world today
2. Children and children’s rights: Changing perceptions
3. The United Nations and child soldiers
4. The legal regulation of the recruitment and use of children in hostilities: International humanitarian law
5. The legal regulation of the recruitment and use of children in hostilities: International human rights law
6. The legal regulation of the recruitment and use of children in hostilities: Customary international law and non-state actors
7. The legal treatment of child soldiers
8. The recruitment of child soldiers as a war crime
9. The responsibility of child soldiers for war crimes
10. Child soldiers as asylum seekers and refugees
11. Child soldiers in international law: Conclusion

Select bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Matthew Happold is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Nottingham. He is a general public international lawyer. He holds degrees from the universities of Oxford and London and the Diploma of the Hague Academy of International Law. Matthew was previously a Research Officer at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and a Lecturer at the University of Sussex. Recent publications include Anderson and Happold (eds), Constitutional Human Rights in the Commonwealth (BIICL, 2003). Matthew is presently writing a monograph on child soldiers in international law to be published by Manchester University Press. He will be spending the spring semester of the academic year 2003-4 on sabbatical as a Visiting Fellow at the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.