In September 2006 I began a three-month internship at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York. I was assigned to the Office of the Special Representative for the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict, or OSRSG-CAAC as it is known amongst UN staff who, for obvious reasons, are serious about abbreviations!
My internship coincided with the start of the hearings against Mr. Thomas Lubanga in the Pre-trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Mr Lubanga is charged with the use and conscription of child soldiers in the armed conflict that ripped through the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 1998, and which has claimed an estimated 3.3 million lives.
Under the Rome Statute – in terms of which the ICC was set up – the use and conscription of child soldiers constitutes a war crime. The OSRSG-CAAC committed itself to give legal and strategic input on the case to the ICC and I chose this as my main project during the internship.
This trial is significant for the protection of human rights and humanitarian law. The ICC has the power to assign heavy sanctions, such as imprisonment, to individual offenders, who are traditionally not subjects of international law.
It is also worth noting that, of all the atrocities that have taken place in the DRC, the case deals exclusively with crimes against children. The reasons for this are two-fold. Firstly there is sufficient evidence of these crimes and, secondly, the direct and continuous involvement of children in armed conflict is understood to be a huge impediment to the peace process because masses of children are learning of nothing but warfare and violence as they grow up. Prosecuting those responsible for robbing the children of their childhood has the potential to send a powerful message across the globe that the rights of children will be enforced and that violators of those rights will be called to justice.
In the area of international criminal law, the rights of children may again prove to be the forerunners of progressive human rights and humanitarian law jurisprudence. The almost universal acceptance of the rights of children has the potential to pave the way for courts’ rigorous enforcement of all the rights of children, not just those violated during times of armed conflict. This case is but one example of how international law is developing to provide enforceable protection of children’s rights. I am proud to have played a tiny part in that development at the UN.
For more information, contact Mira Dutschke.
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