Child soldiers in international law

Child Soldiers Caught in a Cultural Kaleidoscope

“…7 The current legal framework governing duress in international criminal law, demonstrates that it is possible for child soldiers who were considered competent to make decisions, to rely on this defence, provided that the requirements are met. It also demonstrates that the mere fact of being a child soldier and being submerged into the bush culture is not accepted as a sufficient argumentation to sustain a duress argumentation (Happold, 2005).…”

“…As was argued by others 'the oppressive environment deprives child soldiers of their freedom of choice' 5 (Kan, 2018). A defendant who claims duress is not saying that he did not do or did not intend to do what he did, but rather that, faced with an imminent and unavoidable threat aimed at persuading him to commit the offence, he had no viable alternative but to do as he was told (Happold, 2005).…”

“…Given the consequences this reasoning will have and the constrain of the voluntary nature of becoming a child soldier, the application of the prior fault doctrine to children remains controversial (Happold, 2005). In light of the requirement to have sufficient competence to decide to become a child soldier, it may be argued that the impact of prior fault on the possibility to either or not rely on duress, coincides with the competence to take a reasoned decision to either or not become a child soldier.…”

The Notion of Child in International Relations Discipline

“…Nitekim silahlı çatışmalarda çocuk sivillerin korunmasıyla ilgili çok sayıda uluslararası hukuki düzenleme olmasına rağmen, dünyadaki reel durumun vahameti bu konudaki yayınların öne çıkmasını anlaşılır kılmaktadır. Bu kapsamda çocuk askerler hakkında tarihçi (Marten, 1998;Marten 2018;Marten, 2019), uluslararası hukukçu (Cohn ve Goodwin-Gill, 1994;Happold, 2005) ve antropologların çalışmaları (Rosen, 2005;Rosen, 2007;Hart, 2006) ile silahlı çatışmalardaki çocuk sivillerin uluslararası hukukî konumu hakkındaki çalışmalar (Kuper, 1997) ilk olarak akla gelmektedir. Aynı zamanda psikologların da çatışma durumlarındaki çocuklar hakkında (Morris, 1973) ve siyasi şiddetin çocuklar üzerindeki etkisi hakkında (Cairns, 1996) önemli çalışmalara imza attıkları görülmektedir.…”