Chapter

Protecting children in armed conflict through complementary processes of political engagement and international criminal law

David S. Koller

The protection of non-combatants during armed conflict and safeguarding the rights of victims in post-conflict society : essays in honour of the life and work of Joakim Dungel

Leiden ; Boston : Brill Nijhoff, [2015]

p. 71-100

English

In this chapter David Koller describes the development of international humanitarian law relating to children and the problems in the enforcement of that law. It traces the evolution of the Children and Armed Conflict agenda of the United Nations and international criminal law as two new means to enforce international humanitarian law. The chapter examines the purported challenges arising at the intersection of the three paradigms of international humanitarian law, criminal accountability, and political engagement. It concludes that the purported conflict between political negotiations and criminal punishment is actually inherent in each paradigm and not a consequence of conflicting paradigms. However, other potential paradigmatic clashes may emerge if the processes of political engagement and criminal accountability are allowed to become unmoored from their international humanitarian law foundations.

• The protection of non-combatants during armed conflict and safeguarding the rights of victims in post-conflict society : essays in honour of the life and work of Joakim Dungel / ed. by Philipp Ambach... [et al.]