The War Crime of Child Soldier Recruitment
The practice of using children to participate in conflict has become a defining characteristic of 21st century warfare and is the most recent addition to the canon of international war crimes. This book follows the development of this crime of recruiting,
- PDF / 2,319,004 Bytes
- 236 Pages / 453.543 x 683.15 pts Page_size
- 94 Downloads / 173 Views
Julie McBride
The War Crime of Child Soldier Recruitment
Julie McBride
The War Crime of Child Soldier Recruitment
123
Julie McBride Amsterdam The Netherlands
ISBN 978-90-6704-920-7 DOI 10.1007/978-90-6704-921-4
ISBN 978-90-6704-921-4
(eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013948749 T.M.C. ASSER
PRESS,
The Hague, The Netherlands, and the author 2014
Published by T.M.C. ASSER PRESS, The Hague, The Netherlands www.asserpress.nl Produced and distributed for T.M.C. ASSER PRESS by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
To my parents
Preface and Introduction
The recruitment of child soldiers remains a prevalent, and highly topical, issue in 2013,1 and the practice of recruiting children for use as soldiers is the newest addition to the corpus of war crimes in international criminal law. This research provides a critical analysis of how the international justice institutions—namely the Special Court for Sierra Leone (Special Court) and the International Criminal Court (ICC)—have dealt with the challenges of developing this new crime, while also giving effect to the intention of the criminal prohibition: to punish those who recruit children as soldiers, and thus increase the protection afforded to children in conflicts. A number of key challenges can be identified, that will guide this chronological examination of the war crime from human rights principle to prosecution at the Special Court and at the ICC. They are (i) identifying the mens rea and actus reus of the crime; (ii) establishing the appropriate modes of liability and the ambit of the mistake of law defence and (iii) accounting for cultural considerations, including the question of prosecuting child soldiers.
The Actus Reus and Mens Rea This research will explain how the international jurisprudence has elaborated upon the human rights and humanitarian law treaties to determine a succinct mens rea and actus reus for the crime of recruiting child soldiers. The moment at which the prohibition of recruiting and using child soldiers became a crime is when these concepts gained sufficient clarity for breaches to incur individual criminal responsibility. This moment can also be described as the ‘crystallisation’ of the crime, to use the parlance of the Special Court for Si
Data Loading...
