Abstract

This article reviews and also compares developments within international humanitarian law and human rights law in regard to matters relating to child soldiers. Beginning with the Geneva Conventions and early twentieth century legal developments for children in general, this article identifies the legal and conceptual discrepancies in the child soldiers issue and how they relate to and affect each other. It also includes an overview of the child soldiers issue, followed by summary discussions of the respective strengths and weaknesses of international humanitarian law and human rights law in regard to child soldiers. Following from that, conceptual problems in the field that are problematic in regard to law are also considered, and some concluding observations are then offered. Among them is how the patch-work developments of the past still prevail, as evidenced by the ongoing two-tiered age division that exists within the under-18 category.