United States President George Bush, on Friday, signed into law a bill which empowers United States courts to prosecute members of any nationality for their role in the recruitment of child soldiers anywhere in the world.
The legislation makes anyone present in the United States who has been involved in the conscription of children under the age of 15 into the armed forces of any country or group liable to federal prosecution within the United States judicial system.
According to Human Rights Watch, Burma may have more child soldiers than any other country, with estimates running as high as 70,000 – a vast majority of whom serve in Burma's state army.
Passage of the Child Soldiers Accountability Act will ensure, according to Senator Patrick Leahy, "that those who commit human rights violations cannot come to this country [United States] as a sanctuary from prosecution"
Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, greeted the Senate's passage of the bill with the words: "During the last five years, America's reputation has suffered tremendously. Some of our ability to lead on human rights issues has been needlessly and carelessly squandered…We should do everything we can to stop this offense [recruitment of child soldiers] to human rights and human dignity."
Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Jo Becker added, "This new law is a breakthrough because it no longer leaves the prosecution of child recruiters to international tribunals and the national courts of conflict-affected countries."
HRW, along with other international rights groups such as Amnesty International, has long been a vocal advocate in insisting that states maintain a moral obligation to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity in accordance with a principle of "universal jurisdiction."
Employment of child soldiers was first recognized as a war crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in 1998. The authority of the ICC is supplemented by several individual countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada and Belgium, which also maintain laws permitting domestic courts to prosecute persons charged with war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.
Yet an idea of "universal jurisdiction" remains a highly divisive subject on the international stage.
Initially coming to prominence on the international stage with the Nuremburg Tribunal regarding Nazi atrocities during World War II, the concept of "universal jurisdiction" postulates that all states have an obligation in bringing justice to the perpetrators of particular crimes of international concern, regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationalities of those involved.
However several countries, including China, have objected to "universal jurisdiction" on the basis that such a doctrine directly interferes with the right and concept of state sovereignty.
To some degree reflecting states' concerns over forfeiting national sovereignty, the Rome Statute of the ICC – dealing with the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity – remains unratified by numerous influential countries, including the United States, Burma, Russia, India and China.
Of the 108 countries that have acceded to the terms of the Statute, a mere nine are from Asia, with Cambodia the only ASEAN member to do so.
Burma's ruling military junta has repeatedly denied that it actively recruits child soldiers, claiming to have prosecuted dozens of persons found to be illegally involved in such an undertaking and returning over 200 children to their respective parents between the years of 2002 to 2007.
