Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy

Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy
Author: Mark A. Drumbl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2012-01-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199592659

Child soldiers are generally perceived as faultless, passive victims. This ignores that the roles of child soldiers vary, from innocent abductee to wilful perpetrator. This book argues that child soldiers should be judged on their actions and that treating them like a homogenous group prevents them from taking responsibility for their acts.

Research Handbook on Child Soldiers

Research Handbook on Child Soldiers
Author: Mark A. Drumbl
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 563
Release: 2019
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1788114485

Child soldiers remain poorly understood and inadequately protected, despite significant media attention and many policy initiatives. This Research Handbook aims to redress this troubling gap. It offers a reflective, fresh and nuanced review of the complex issue of child soldiering. The Handbook brings together scholars from six continents, diverse experiences, and a broad range of disciplines. Along the way, it unpacks the life-cycle of youth and militarization: from recruitment to demobilization to return to civilian life. The overarching aim of the Handbook is to render the invisible visible – the contributions map the unmapped and chart new directions. Challenging prevailing assumptions and conceptions, the Research Handbook on Child Soldiers focuses on adversity but also capacity: emphasising the resilience, humanity, and potentiality of children affected (rather than ‘afflicted’) by armed conflict.

Child Soldiers

Child Soldiers
Author: Myriam S. Denov
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2010-03-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0521872243

Traces the experiences of child soldiers in Sierra Leone during and after war and examines the implications of their participation.

The Child and the World

The Child and the World
Author: Jana Tabak
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2020
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0820356409

However unthinkable child-soldiers may be within a generalized conception of childhood, they are not imaginary figures; rather, they are a constant in almost every armed conflict around the world. The participation of children in wars may question the idea of childhood as a "once-upon-a-time story with a happy and predictable ending," disrupting the (natural) idea of a protected and innocent childhood and also eliciting fear, uncertainty, revulsion, horror, and sorrow. Using the perspectives of both childhood studies and critical approaches to international relations, Jana Tabak explores the constructions of child-soldiers as "children at risk" and, at the same time, risky children. More specifically, The Child and the World aims both to problematize the boundaries that articulate child-soldiers as necessarily deviant and pathological in relation to "normal" children and to show how these specific limits participate in the (re)production and promotion of a particular version of the international political order. In this sense, the focus of this work is not on investigating child-soldiers' lives and experiences per se but on their presumed threatening feature as they depart from the protected territory of childhood, disquieting everyday international life.

Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law

Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law
Author: Mark A. Drumbl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2007-04-30
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1139464566

This book argues that accountability for extraordinary atrocity crimes should not uncritically adopt the methods and assumptions of ordinary liberal criminal law. Criminal punishment designed for common criminals is a response to mass atrocity and a device to promote justice in its aftermath. This book comes to this conclusion after reviewing the sentencing practices of international, national, and local courts and tribunals that punish atrocity perpetrators. Sentencing practices of these institutions fail to attain the goals that international criminal law ascribes to punishment, in particular retribution and deterrence. Fresh thinking is necessary to confront the collective nature of mass atrocity and the disturbing reality that individual membership in group-based killings is often not maladaptive or deviant behavior but, rather, adaptive or conformist behavior. This book turns to a modern, and adventurously pluralist, application of classical notions of cosmopolitanism to advance the frame of international criminal law to a broader construction of atrocity law and towards an interdisciplinary, contextual, and multicultural conception of justice.

Children and Transitional Justice

Children and Transitional Justice
Author: Sharanjeet Parmar
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780979639548

This musical release from the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under the conduction of Andris Nelsons captures a live performance by the ensemble, recorded for the Coventry Cathedral's 50th anniversary on May 30th, 2012. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

Child Soldiers as Agents of War and Peace

Child Soldiers as Agents of War and Peace
Author: Leonie Steinl
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2017-08-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9462652015

This book deals with child soldiers’ involvement in crimes under international law. Child soldiers are often victims of grave human rights abuses, and yet, in some cases, they also participate actively in inflicting violence upon others. Nonetheless, the international discourse on child soldiers often tends to ignore the latter dimension of children’s involvement in armed conflict and instead focuses exclusively on their role as victims. While it might seem as though the discourse is therefore beneficial for child soldiers as it protects them from blame and responsibility, it is important to realize that the so-called passive victim narrative entails various adverse consequences, which can hinder the successful reintegration of child soldiers into their families, communities and societies. This book aims to address this dilemma. First, the available options for dealing with child soldiers’ participation in crimes under international law, such as transitional justice and criminal justice, and their shortcomings are analyzed in depth. Subsequently a new approach is developed towards achieving accountability in a child-adequate way, which is called restorative transitional justice. This book is in the first place aimed at researchers with an interest in child soldiers, children and armed conflict, as well as international criminal law, transitional justice, juvenile justice, restorative justice, children’s rights, and international human rights law. Secondly, professionals working on issues of transitional justice, juvenile justice, international criminal law, children’s rights, and the reintegration of child soldiers will also find the subject matter of great relevance to their practice. Dr. Leonie Steinl, LL.M. (Columbia) is a Researcher and Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin.

The UN Friendly Relations Declaration at 50

The UN Friendly Relations Declaration at 50
Author: Jorge E. Viñuales
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1047
Release: 2020-10-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108662307

The year 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Organisation, and the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Friendly Relations Declaration, which states the fundamental principles of the international legal order. In commemoration, some of the world's most prominent international law scholars from all continents have come together to offer a comprehensive study of the fundamental principles of international law. Each chapter in this volume reflects decades of experience, work and reflection by the most authoritative voices of the field. At the same time, the book is an invitation to end narrow specialisation and re-engage with the wider body of rules and processes that lie at the foundations of the international legal order.

Female Child Soldiering, Gender Violence, and Feminist Theologies

Female Child Soldiering, Gender Violence, and Feminist Theologies
Author: Susan Willhauck
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3030219828

This book examines the phenomenon of female child soldiering from various theological perspectives. It is an interdisciplinary work that brings Christian feminist theologies into dialogue to analyze the complex ethical, geopolitical, social, and theological issues involved in the militarization of girls and women and gender-based violence. With contributions from a range of interdisciplinary and multicultural authors, this book offers reflections and perspectives that coalesce as a comprehensive overview of feminist theological insights into child soldiering.

The Preservation of Art and Culture in Times of War

The Preservation of Art and Culture in Times of War
Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2022-09-06
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0197610587

Conflict over cultural heritage has increasingly become a standard part of war. Today, systematic exploitation, manipulation, attacks, and destruction of cultural heritage by state and non-state actors form part of most violent conflicts across the world. Such acts are often intentional and based on well-planned strategies for inflicting harm on groups of people and communities. With this increasing awareness of the role cultural heritage plays in war, scholars and practitioners have progressed from seeing conflict-related destruction of cultural heritage as a cultural tragedy to understanding it as a vital national security issue. There is also a shift from the desire to protect cultural property for its own sake to viewing its protection as connected to broader agendas of peace and security. Concerns about cultural heritage have thus migrated beyond the cultural sphere to worries about the protection of civilians, the financing of terrorism, societal resilience, post-conflict reconciliation, hybrid warfare, and the geopolitics of territorial conflicts. This volume seeks to deepen public understanding of the evolving nexus between cultural heritage and security in the twenty-first century. Drawing on a variety of disciplines and perspectives, the chapters in this volume examine a complex set of relationships between the deliberate destruction and misuse of cultural heritage in times of conflict, on the one hand, and basic societal values, legal principles, and national security, on the other.