This book provides an original legal analysis of child soldiers recruited into armed groups or
forces committing mass atrocities and or genocide as the victims of the genocidal forcible
transfer of children. Legal argument is made regarding the lack of criminal culpability of such
child soldier 'recruits' for conflict-related international crimes and the inapplicability of
currently recommended judicial and non-judicial accountability mechanisms in such cases. The
book challenges various anthropological accounts of child soldiers' alleged 'tactical agency'
to resist committing atrocity as members of armed groups or forces committing mass atrocity and
or genocide. Also provided are original interpretations of relevant international law including
an interpretation of the Rome Statute age-based exclusion from prosecution of persons who were
under 18 at the time of perpetrating the crime as substantive law setting an international
standard for the humane treatment of child soldiers.
