Table of contents:
Element:
P.11. Evidence inferred from a utterance, a document or a deed.
A. Legal source/authority and evidence:
Michael Cottier, Article 8 in Otto Triffterer, ed, Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1999) para. 228:
While the notion[s] of conscripting [ ] [is] not further defined in international law, [ ] [its] meaning in the present context can be derived from [ ] [its] ordinary signification404.Conscription refers to the compulsory entry into the armed forces.
404 To conscript is defined as to compel to military service by conscription, to enlist compulsorily, THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONNARY 848 (Vol. III, reprint 1978), and as to force someone by law to serve in one of the armed forces, THE CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 289 (1995).
[B. Evidentiary comment:]
A. Legal source/authority and evidence:
UNICEF, Adult War, Child Soldiers: Voices of Children Involved in Armed Conflict in the East Asia and Pacific Region (2002), p. 24:
Some boys described tense moments when militia members held a machete to their neck or guns to their head and told them to join the militia.
Mark Iacono, The Child Soldiers of Sierra Leone: Are They Accountable for Their Actions in War? 26 Suffolk Transnatl L. Rev. 445, 448-449:
The RUF compelled youths into service through threats of violence. [FN22].
[FN22]. See Schuler, supra note 3, at 1 (explaining how RUF rebels spare childs life if child committed acts of violence). Rebels demanded an eight-year-old boy slit his fathers throat or face death along with his parents. Id. At his fathers request, the boy did as the rebels instructed. Id.
[B. Evidentiary comment:]
A. Legal source/authority and evidence:
UNICEF, Adult War, Child Soldiers: Voices of Children Involved in Armed Conflict in the East Asia and Pacific Region (2002), p. 24:
The militia threatened to kill me if I didnt join them [ ]. The leaser of the Sakunar told us [ ] if they refused they would be shot. [ ] [East Timor joined when he was 17, now 18].
[B. Evidentiary comment:]
A. Legal source/authority and evidence:
UNICEF, Adult War, Child Soldiers: Voices of Children Involved in Armed Conflict in the East Asia and Pacific Region (2002), p. 24, 27:
Children spoke of the military or militia making direct threats to kill them or their families if they did not join.
[B. Evidentiary comment:]
A. Legal source/authority and evidence:
The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, United Nations General Assembly, U.N. Doc. A/51/306.Add.1, 6 September 1996, p.7:
A number of case studies report that when the shelling starts the children get over-excited and forget to take cover. Some commanders deliberately exploit such fearlessness in children, even plying them with alcohol or drugs.
Mark Iacono, The Child Soldiers of Sierra Leone: Are They Accountable for Their Actions in War? 26 Suffolk Transnatl L. Rev. 445, 448-449:
The RUF compelled youths into service through threats of violence. [FN22]. Seized at impressionable ages, most of [ ] these children acquiesced to the RUF authority. [FN 23] Narcotics were a favored method of coercion for less submissive children. [FN24] Under the influence of substances such as cocaine, child soldiers were thrust into battle and easily manipulated into killing and maiming their countrymen. [FN25].
[FN22]. See Schuler, supra note 3, at 1 (explaining how RUF rebels spare childs life if child committed acts of violence). Rebels demanded an eight-year-old boy slit his fathers throat or face death along with his parents. Id. At his fathers request, the boy did as the rebels instructed. Id.
[FN23]. See Schuler, supra note 3, at 1. (explaining commanders belief that children make good soldiers because of impressionability). Olara Otunnu, the U.N. Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflicts, said that commanders desire children soldiers because rebels can easily mold then into a ruthless, unquestioning instrument. Id. By getting a child to commit one horrid act, rebel leaders know such a child will obey subsequent orders. See id.
[FN24]. See Brutal Child Army Grows Up, BBC News, May 10, 2000 (calling drug abuse key factor in conduct of RUF), at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7436840.stm. (last visited Feb. 14, 2003). Evidencing the abuse, various reports stated thousands of syringes lay outside the abandoned home of RUF leader Sankoh. Id.
[FN25]. See Schuler, supra note 3, at 1 (detailing account of rebel whose leader cut his arm and inserted cocaine direct into bloodstream). One rebel stated the cocaine gave [him] the will to fight. Id. With the drug-induced hot temper, rebels raided towns and shot anything that moved. Id.
[B. Evidentiary comment:]
A. Legal source/authority and evidence:
UNICEF, Adult War, Child Soldiers: Voices of Children Involved in Armed Conflict in the East Asia and Pacific Region (2002), p. 25:
Organized forced recruitment and abduction were reported in two countries. [ ] Others were forcibly removed from their houses, off a bus or abducted while walking home.
The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, United Nations General Assembly, U.N. Doc. A/51/306.Add.1, 6 September 1996, p.6:
This form of press ganging, know in Ethiopia as afesa, was prevalent there in the 1980s, when armed militia, police or army cadres would roam the streets picking up anyone they encountered. [ ] In Myanmar, whole groups of children from 15 to 17 years old have been surrounded in their schools and forcibly conscripted.
[B. Evidentiary comment:]
A. Legal source/authority and evidence:
Roy S. Lee, The International Criminal Court: The Making of the Rome Statute, p.118:
[ ] the words conscripting or enlisting have a more passive connotation and relate primarily to the administrative act of putting the name of a person on a list.
[B. Evidentiary comment:]
P.12. Evidence inferred from a circumstance.
ICC, The Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda , ICC-01/04-02/06, Decision on the Charges (PTC), 9 June 2014, para. 133:
