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LESSON PLAN : The ICC and Children

THE ROME STATUTE AND CHILDREN

The Rome Statute specifically includes violations of the human rights of children in its definition of the crime of genocide, over which the Court will have jurisdiction:

Article 6: Genocide For the purpose of this Statute, "genocide" means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

2. Crimes Against Humanity

The Rome Statute also affirms crimes against children as crimes against humanity.

Article 7: Crimes against humanity
For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(c) "Enslavement" means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children;

3. The War Crime of Recruiting or Using Child Soldiers

No Recruitment Under 15

An important feature of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is that it criminalizes as a war crime the recruitment of children into national armed forces or armed groups and their use in hostilities, whether the conflict is international or internal.

Most child soldiers are adolescents (although many are less than ten years of age), usually recruited because their immaturity makes them especially vulnerable to the psychological and physical control tactics of fear and intimidation used by their commanders. Child soldiers may serve in a variety of capacities from cook to combatant. Regardless of how they are recruited or for what use, child soldiers are likely to be forced into combat, where their inexperience and immaturity make them uniquely vulnerable to trauma, injury, and death. Often, the recruitment of children into armed groups involves children being forced into committing acts of extreme violence to desensitize them to death and bloodshed and fill them with the fear and hatred necessary to make them amenable to control by their commanders. Sometimes, children are forced to commit these acts against members their own family or community.

The Rome Statue specifically bans the use of child soldiers, both for international conflicts and for disputes within the countries party to the Statute. Consistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions, no person under the age of 15 may be recruited into armed forces or used to participate in hostilities.

Accordingly, the Rome Statute includes recruitment and use of child soldiers contrary to the Geneva Conventions as a war crime within the jurisdiction on the ICC:

Article 8: War Crimes The Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes such as:
(a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention: (xxvi) Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities...

The Rome Statute also ensures that the conscription and use of child soldiers is not simply a crime when carried out in international armed conflicts, but also makes the practice a crime under ICC jurisdiction even when carried out nationally, within a country, such as during civil war:

Article 8: War Crimes (e) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts not of an international character, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts: (vii) Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities;

The Optional Protocol and the Rome Statute

The Optional Protocol was adopted after the Rome Statute. When the Rome Statute was negotiated, countries agreed that international law allowed for the recruitment of soldiers who were 15 years of age and over. Two years later, however, states agreed that international law had changed and that young people under 18 should not be compulsorily recruited into armed forces or groups or used in armed conflict

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