The character Astro Boy, which was called “child of science” in the 1963 anime series, is related here to Imperial Japan’s wartime policy of science. The term “child of science” was also applied to other characters at the time of the Asia-Pacific War, and intriguingly, the use of it covered not only mechanical but also human children. Seeking to find answers to the question of how such different things could be subsumed under the same term, the focus is on the empire’s policies and discourses of scientific warfare, and how they transformed children’s media of entertainment and education – manga, magazines, toys, and music – and even children’s bodies into weaponry at perceptual and physical levels. The issue of the “weaponization” of human bodies helps to reconsider the military traits and the subhuman qualities of Astro Boy. Extending this to Imperial Japan’s history of child soldiers, and conducting both intratextual and transtextual research of related anime and manga by Osamu Tezuka, this study brings to light the unnarrated life of Tobio, the human original of Astro Boy, as well as the implication of his premature death.

The vulnerability of children is rather different from that of other vulnerable groups, in that at different stages of their development they are mostly dependent on others for their survival and cannot (or are not allowed to) partake in social or political life in the same way as adults. Unlike all other vulnerable persons, the well-being of children is entrusted to their parents and guardians and hence many of the issues facing children have traditionally been perceived through the lens of family relationships and family law, as opposed to human rights law.The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its subsequent protocols has somewhat changed this state of affairs by introducing several principles which transform children from objects to real subjects of the law. Unless states take active and concerted measures to prevent and punish the perpetrators (and end-users) of such offences, the exploitation of children will remain a profitable enterprise. Without investment in the lives of children through the use of maximum available resources, states will remain weak and children disempowered. This chapter examines the emergence of a specialised human rights regime for children, as well as the guiding principles found in the CRC. It then goes on to illustrate how poverty and other factors exacerbate the vulnerabilities of children.

This chapter explores the protections afforded under the laws of war to young women and girls who, over the course of a single conflict, may occupy the roles of a child, a civilian, a combatant, a killer, a victim of sexual violence, and/or a mother. But rather than exploring this question into relation to women and girls as a homogenous group, it focuses on one young woman in one conflict, the so-called Second Congo War. Drawing on testimony provided by this witness during the Ntaganda case at the International Criminal Court (ICC), the chapter presents a critical view on the role of law in war. It observes that even with advances in legal protections for women and girls, as demonstrated by this important ICC case, in practical terms these actors often have no one to protect them but themselves.

The Court’s historic movement from theory to practice came with a round of investigations targeting specific conflicts and identifying specific suspects, centered mainly in Africa. The powers and constraints of the ICC Prosecutor were closely monitored by judges as the Court issued its first arrest warrants. The first three suspects to arrive in The Hague were Congolese men from the peripheral Ituri district; and a fourth Congolese suspect was soon apprehended for alleged crimes in the Central African Republic. Lasting more than a decade, each trial faced a series of crises and reversals, indicating fault-lines in the original design. Mixed evidence made it surprisingly difficult for the Court to establish crimes involving child soldiers, as well as sex and gender crimes; and even more difficult to attribute criminal responsibility to the individuals accused. The interests of victims had to be balanced with the legal principle of fair trials. From an initial overview, the reader understands the many difficulties – both practical and institutional – facing the new Court and its ambitious mission.

Chapter 5 examines the international law rules governing the mobilization of people to fight in wars. The chapter examines Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programmes in the context of UN peace operations, the internatinoal crimes of forced conscription, and child soldier recruitment. The chapter summarizes attempts to regulate the global private military and security industry, including through self-regulation, and the increasing attempts by states to criminalize foreign fighters under counterterrorism laws.

There are several large-scale violent conflicts in Africa, which affect some but by no means all African countries. The vast majority of these conflicts are intra-state conflicts; inter-state conflicts rarely occur. This chapter explains why this is the case after having explored the only two large-scale inter-state wars in Africa since decolonization: the war between Uganda and Tanzania as well as the one between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Turning to intra-state conflicts, several reasons for the outbreak of wars – often described as “new wars” – are explained as are the reasons that motivate some to become rebels. The greed vs. grievance argument plays an important role here. Thereafter, the two post-colonial genocides – in Rwanda and Darfur – are scrutinized alongside a discussion of why genocide occur. Being of unprecedented magnitude, “Africa’s Great War”, a war complex in the Great Lakes Region (1996-2006), is also analyzed as is the situation of and in refugee camps that are often a place of insecurity themselves.

The Court’s historic movement from theory to practice came with a round of investigations targeting specific conflicts and identifying specific suspects, centered mainly in Africa. The powers and constraints of the ICC Prosecutor were closely monitored by judges as the Court issued its first arrest warrants. The first three suspects to arrive in The Hague were Congolese men from the peripheral Ituri district; and a fourth Congolese suspect was soon apprehended for alleged crimes in the Central African Republic. Lasting more than a decade, each trial faced a series of crises and reversals, indicating fault-lines in the original design. Mixed evidence made it surprisingly difficult for the Court to establish crimes involving child soldiers, as well as sex and gender crimes; and even more difficult to attribute criminal responsibility to the individuals accused. The interests of victims had to be balanced with the legal principle of fair trials. From an initial overview, the reader understands the many difficulties – both practical and institutional – facing the new Court and its ambitious mission.

This chapter examines the contribution of the Special Court for Sierra Leone caselaw on the prosecution of child recruitment as a war crime under international law. The Sierra Leone conflict was widely known for its conscriptions of children as child soldiers, who under the influence of fear, drugs, and hallucinogens committed grave atrocities across Sierra Leone. Although the crime of child recruitment and conscription was recognized in 1998 when the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court was adopted, the Special Court was the first court to successfully charge and prosecute this particular war crime. In analyzing this novel prosecution, this chapter first addresses the creation and recognition of the war crime of child recruitment within the Rome Statute. Second, it examines the reasoning of the Appeals Chamber in holding that child recruitment is a crime recognized under customary international law. Third, it assesses the impact of the Special Court’s work on prosecuting child recruitment in developing the actus reus and mens rea of the crime. Finally, this chapter examines the impact of the Special Court on the International Criminal Court’s prosecutions of child recruitment in the recent cases of Lubanga and Ongwen.

This chapter will analyse the right of self-determination in respect of its external and internal dimension, the rights of minorities and the rights of indigenous peoples. Self-determination is the point of reference for any discussion of indigenous and minority rights, although it is far broader than both of these. Minority rights in turn are not considered collective entitlements in relevant international human rights instruments. None the less, as the reader will come to appreciate, they are not devoid of a collective character altogether. Indigenous rights are largely based on soft law and some of their fundamental premises (for example, land rights) are hotly disputed by interested states. Yet, it is indisputable that the international community recognises that the vulnerable status of indigenous peoples necessitates a distinctive approach based on the adoption of measures that allow the preservation of their culture and traditions, while on the other hand helping them to develop, whether technologically, financially, educationally or otherwise. Group rights are controversial primarily because they give rise to questions of ‘us’ and ‘others’ in addition to challenging traditional notions of state sovereignty.