The Study of the Minimum Age of Criminal Liability for Children’s Soldiers in International Criminal Law

There is no war launched by the child in the world. However,when war occurs,children are often involved in the war and even recruited into the troops to the front-line of war. Once these innocent children are forced to participate in hostilities,violations would occur .As a result,it would cause serious criminal acts ,violations of international criminal law and guilty of international crime. But the countries’ Penal Code of criminal responsibility for children’s age is not the same. What’s more,the international community did not reach a consensus on the minimum age of young soldiers’ criminal responsibility. Therefore,it leads to the situation that young soldiers are treated in different ways in the practice of international criminal law. It even disobeyed the international penal code’s humanitarianism principle and caused great shock and contention. Fighting for reasonable treatment of the criminal responsibility for young soldiers,the Additional Protocol of the Geneva Convention,the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice,the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,Minors under the domestic law and the principles of international law criminal responsibility resolutions all carried on effort for this and great progress has been made. But the international community did not make clear about the uniform minimum age of criminal responsibility of children’s army. Considering the situation of the practice from the administration of justice of the European Court of Human Rights and the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone,in order to be a reasonable solution of the Army’s criminal responsibility of children,the international community should make clear uniform provisions that concerning the minimum age for children’s military commitment to the international crime of criminal responsibility.