During the turmoil last years of the 20th century, Sierra Leone was plagued by a devastating civil war. Ishmeal, a young boy at the time, tragically fell into the hands of rebel forces and was forced into the harrowing life of a child soldier. However, fortune smiled upon him, and he miracu- lously managed to escape and reunite with his family. These traumatic experiences deeply impacted Ishmeal, fueling his desire to dedicate his life to humanitarian work, assisting those facing adversity. With an unwavering deter- mination and the firm support of his resilient mother and various mentors, Ishmeal successfully pursued his ambiti- ous dream. In his book, he recounts his journey, shedding light on his career and the invaluable life lessons he has learned along the way.

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.

‘Child Soldiers and the Lubanga Case’ and ‘The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare’ are the two central themes of this volume. Each of these timely topics is addressed from three different angles, providing a truly comprehensive analysis of the subject. The book also features an article on the duty to investigate civilian casualties during armed conflict and its implementation in practice and an elaborate year in review, discussing developments that occurred in 2012. The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is the world's only annual publication devoted to the study of the laws governing armed conflict. It provides a truly international forum for high-quality, peer-reviewed academic articles focusing on this crucial branch of international law. Distinguished by contemporary relevance, the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law bridges the gap between theory and practice and serves as a useful reference tool for scholars, practitioners, military personnel, civil servants, diplomats, human rights workers and students.

The use of child soldiers in the Sudan Civil War has shattered the accepted understanding of why children join armies. Thousands of children signed up to participate in Africa's longest running civil war, yet so far the international community and the academic world have viewed them as victims rather than participants. In this groundbreaking new study, Christine Emily Ryan challenges preconceptions which have held back aid work and reconstruction in the Sudan region. Using face-to-face testimonies of former child soldiers, she illuminates the multi-dimensional motivations which children have for joining the Sudan Liberation Army, and unravels the complexity of their political participation. At the same time, interviews with NGO personnel illustrate the gap that exists between the West and the reality of conflict in Africa. 'Children of War' provides a powerful critique of the position taken by the international community, NGOs and academia to the phenomenon of child soldiers, and calls for a new approach to conflict resolution in Africa.

In Representations of Child Soldiers in Contemporary African Narratives, Ademola Adesola examines the dominant factors that writers privilege in their portrayals of child soldiering in sub-Saharan Africa. In his textual-interpretive analyses of selected novels in the African child soldier genre, Adesola contends that critical discussions of African child soldier literature have depended on the interpretive frameworks supplied by Western humanitarian discourses which oversimplify and de-historicize experiences of war in Africa. The author argues that such reductive decontextualization of war realities serve to champion a narrow vision of war in African contexts centered on a moral and humanitarian urge for Western intervention. Regardless of whether the casus belli legitimating those wars are genuine or not, those conflicts (and children’s involvement in them) are understood within the same racist colonial and ethnocentric stereotypes about Africa that have been privileged in Western thought and the Western moral-political imagination for centuries. Thus, in studying African child soldier narratives, this book provides an alternative reading of novels whose settings feature African ethnopolitical conflicts – such as in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo-Brazzaville, Nigeria – notable for their exploitation of children for military ends. The author maintains that these works are significant in the varying ways they reify and challenge the Western ideas of “child” and “childhood,” as well as privilege child soldiers as social actors whose intricate makeups disavow being simply understood as innocent victims or irredeemable perpetrators of atrocities.

This fully updated third edition of The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law sets out an international manual of humanitarian law accompanied by case analysis and extensive explanatory commentary by a team of distinguished and internationally renowned experts. The new edition takes account of recent developments in the law, including the 2010 amendments to the ICC Statute, the progressive evolution of customary law, and new jurisprudence from national and international courts and tribunals. It sheds light on controversial topics like direct participation in hostilities; air and missile warfare; belligerent occupation; operational detention; and the protection of the environment in armed conflict. The book also addresses the growing need to consider the interface between international humanitarian law and human rights, as well as other branches of international law, both during armed conflicts and in post-conflict situations. The commentary both deepens reflection on such innovations, and critically reconsiders views expressed in earlier editions to provide a contemporary analysis of this changing field. Renowned international lawyers offer a broad spectrum of legal opinions, restating the law in this area, which is applicable worldwide. Particular attention is paid to problems of application of the law in recent military campaigns, which are assessed and interpreted in a practice-oriented manner. Based on best-practice rules of global importance, this book gives invaluable guidance to practitioners and scholars of this important body of law.

Why are civilian populations targeted in modern wars despite laws and ethical claims insisting on civilian protections? This book offers answers.

When we hear the term “child soldiers,” most Americans imagine innocent victims roped into bloody conflicts in distant war-torn lands like Sudan and Sierra Leone. Yet our own history is filled with examples of children involved in warfare—from adolescent prisoner of war Andrew Jackson to Civil War drummer boys—who were once viewed as symbols of national pride rather than signs of human degradation. In this daring new study, anthropologist David M. Rosen investigates why our cultural perception of the child soldier has changed so radically over the past two centuries. Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination reveals how Western conceptions of childhood as a uniquely vulnerable and innocent state are a relatively recent invention. Furthermore, Rosen offers an illuminating history of how human rights organizations drew upon these sentiments to create the very term “child soldier,” which they presented as the embodiment of war’s human cost. Filled with shocking historical accounts and facts—and revealing the reasons why one cannot spell “infantry” without “infant”—Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination seeks to shake us out of our pervasive historical amnesia. It challenges us to stop looking at child soldiers through a biased set of idealized assumptions about childhood, so that we can better address the realities of adolescents and pre-adolescents in combat. Presenting informative facts while examining fictional representations of the child soldier in popular culture, this book is both eye-opening and thought-provoking.

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.

This book provides an original legal analysis of child soldiers recruited into armed groups or forces committing mass atrocities and/or genocide as the victims of the genocidal forcible transfer of children. Legal argument is made regarding the lack of criminal culpability of such child soldier 'recruits' for conflict-related international crimes and the inapplicability of currently recommended judicial and non-judicial accountability mechanisms in such cases. The book challenges various anthropological accounts of child soldiers' alleged 'tactical agency' to resist committing atrocity as members of armed groups or forces committing mass atrocity and/or genocide. Also provided are original interpretations of relevant international law including an interpretation of the Rome Statute age-based exclusion from prosecution of persons who were under 18 at the time of perpetrating the crime as substantive law setting an international standard for the humane treatment of child soldiers.