The UN's involvement on the issue of Child Soldiers

"Children need be the victims of war only if there is no will to prevent it. Experiences in dozens of conflicts confirm that extraordinary actions have been taken and can be taken to protect and provide for children." State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 1996.

UNICEF, the Committee on the Rights of the Child within the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict , and the UN Security Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict have been the most involved UN offices involved in the issue of Child Soldiers. Other groups have weighed in on the issue as well, including the UN Human Rights Sub-Commission on Conscientious Objection to Military Service and the UN Seminar on Child Labor. This is by no means considered an exhaustive list since the issue of child soldiers is so wide reaching it may have been mentioned briefly in many different agencies and offices within the UN.

As UN involvement has been extensive in the issue of child soldiers, I have developed a timeline highlighting important events in the campaign. This list is not exhaustive as UN involvement is so heavy it would be a prohibitively long timeline! It is meant to demonstrate when different agencies and offices became active, and in what capacities they have been involved. Please see the analysis following the timeline for my critique of the UN’s role in the agenda-setting process of child soldiers.

1959- UN adopts the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, but it offers no protection to child soldiers.

1979- United Nation’s International Year of the Child which inspires the UN to begin considering updating the 1959 Declaration on the Rights of the Child (???)

1980-QUNO submits recommendations on child soldiers to the UN’s 36^th session of the Commission on Human Rights

1983- The Human Rights Sub-Commission on Conscientious Objection to Military Service recommended that some kind of action be taken to diminish the use of child soldiers (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/43:16) (from Heckel, 13).

1984- UNICEF hosts NGO workshops in Rome discussing child victims of armed combat (Heckel, 13).

1984- UNICEF conducts studies on the impact of war on children in Uganda and South Africa.

1985- UN Seminar on Child Labor reached the conclusion that child soldiering was a form of exploitative child labor (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/43:16).

1985- UNICEF publishes “Children in Especially Difficult Circumstances” which includes a section condemning the use of child soldiers (E/ICEF/1985CRP.3 and E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/43:16).

20 November 1989 – Convention on the Rights of the Child adopts by the UN General Assembly and is the “first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.” U.S. and Somalia are the only states who do not ratify. The Convention defines a child as anyone under 18 but does not specify this age for child soldiering. In Article 38 it reiterates the Geneva Convention’s 15 years of age and asks states to prioritize use of older soldiers.

September 1992- Committee on the Rights of the Child which monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child spends a whole day on “Children in Armed Conflicts” (CRC/C/10).

1993- Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends the adoption of an Optional Protocol to raise age of recruitment and service to 18

June 1993- World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, participants also called for an Optional Protocol.

1994- UN Commission on Human Rights establishes a “working group” to draft the Optional Protocol and they meet for the first time.

1994- UN announces its campaign to end the use of child soldiers (Heckel, 18).

March 1994- UN resolution 48/157 appoints Graca Machel to deliver a report on the status of children in armed conflict

1996- Graça Machel report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children comes out, and the UN secretary general appoints a new Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu

January 1996- the UN Human Rights Commission authorizes another Working Group which decides to create an informal drafting group to get the work done quicker. Pressure from U.S. prevents group from accomplishing much. (Heckel, 20)

1997- UNICEF and NGOs reach an agreement on goals for the child soldiers Optional Protocol (move age from 15 to 18) at Symposium on Child Soldiers in Cape Town (organized by NGOs) (Lorey 2001:10??? From Heckel, 19-20)

September 1997- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appoints Olara Otunnu as his Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

1999- The UN Security Council passes Resolution 1261 identifying children and armed conflict as an issue affecting international peace and security.

1999- UN work in Sierra Leone helps to bring about the Lomé Accords which are the first peace treaty to recognize the use of child soldiers. It also made provisions for their rehabilitation and reentry into society (Singer, 184).

May, November and December 1999- Canada hold workshops and consultations on strengthening the text of the draft of the Optional Protocol

May 25, 2000- After six year of complex negotiations, The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict is adopted by the UN General Assembly. It provides that states shall not compulsorily recruit persons under the age of 18.

June 2000- Optional Protocol opened for signatures and Canada is the first to sign.

2001- The UN Security Council passes Resolution 1379 which urges U.N. member states to prosecute those who recruit and use children in war. It also requested the Secretary General to create a list of parties in armed conflict that violate international law on child soldiering.

2002- Secretary General generates list of offending parties and presents to Security Council.

2003- UN Security Council passes resolution 1460 calling on offending parties to “provide information on steps they have taken to halt their recruitment or use of children in armed conflict.”

2004- UN Security Council Resolution 1539 condemns lack of progress on implementation of Resolution 1460 and says that a violating party’s failure to comply may result in sanctions (mostly military arms). It also asked the Secretary-General to come up with a monitoring and reporting system.

July 2005- UN Security Council Resolution 1612 created a monitoring and reporting system and instituted the Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict.

Present- UN working group set up in Resolution 1612 continues to work but is plagued with conflicting interests and opinions. As far as I can tell no sanctions have been imposed, even though many offending parties have consistently violated international law (specifically LTTE in Sri Lanka). They spent the first half of 2008 working on internal procedure and working methods.

In what capacities has the UN been involved in this issue? Using the list of capacities suggested by Reinicke and Deng it seems that the UN has had a part in each role possible; convener, provider of a platform and “safe place,” social entrepreneur, norm entrepreneur, multilevel-network manager and capacity builder (Reinicke and Deng, 97). The UN brought governments into a conversation about child soldiering, with NGOs providing information and suggestions. This informal way of “bringing stakeholders together” helped to create “consensual knowledge-building (Reinicke and Deng, 97).”

The high profile leadership of the UN on this issue qualifies them as the most visible social entrepreneur on the issue of child soldiers. While QUNO and other smaller European NGOs were pushing hard for the child soldier issue to be put on the UN’s agenda, it was the CRC committee that provided the platform and space to make the debate public. In addition, the UN consistently has taken actions to promote a new norm in the area of child soldiers, making them norm entrepreneurs as well. The UN role as multilevel-network manager and capacity-builders has not been as prominent but should not be discounted. While I did not mention anything specific about financing projects, UNICEF has co-funded some projects (with USAID for example) on child soldier rehabilitation.

In terms of the diagnostic and prognostic framing, the UN had a role in both. Diagnostically different UN agencies have produced reports on the situation of child soldiers. NGOs , governments , and the media have also had a crucial role in diagnostic framing. The UN has taken the lead on prognostic framing for the issue of child soldiers, although governments (Canada, others) and NGOs (QUNO, INAGH, HRW) have supplied the UN with suggestions and have applied pressure.

The UN’s role in getting the issue of child soldiers on the global agenda was absolutely crucial. At every step of the agenda-setting process the UN was involved in some way or another, even if it was not always the key player. The UN Security Council is currently involved in the implementation stage of the process, and UNICEF and the The Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict are still involved in the campaign and in motivational framing (reports, publications, etc.).

Sources:

Heckel, Heather. “Transnational Activism without the hegemon: The cases of child soldiers and child sexual exploitation.” (February 2005) unpublished manuscript

Joachim, Jutta M. Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights. Georgetown University Press (2007), Washington D.C.

Reinicke, Wolfgang H. and Deng, Francis, et. al. Critical Choices: The United Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance. International Development Research Centre. Better World Fund. United Nations Foundation (2000).

Singer, P.W. Children at War. Pantheon Books (2005): New York.

Snyder, Ross. "The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict." Human security and the new diplomacy / ed. by Rob McRae & Don Hubert (2001), p. 152-160

Webster, Timothy. "Babes with Arms: International Law and Child Soldiers." The George Washington International Law Review; 2007; 39,2