Non-State Actors Escaping Justice - Obligations Regarding Child Soldiers Applicable to Non-State Actors

There are mainly three different international legal obligations regarding child soldiers in internal armed conflicts. The prohibition from child recruitment, to provide special protection for children and protection from taking part in hostilities. All are applicable to States but it is less clear which of them apply to non-state actors. In order to determine if these obligations are applicable to non-state actors, different theories of where those obligations could have originated from. There are mainly five possibilities of origin. The possibility of binding a third party to a treaty, legislative jurisdiction, governmental claims, acceptance and customary international law. If one of those theories applies to the situation at hand, the next step is to analyse if the non-state actor meets the requirements for them to be bound by international law. These requirements are different conditions or characteristics in the form of thresholds the non-state actors have to pass. There are the threshold of organisation, stability and effective control and international legal personality. It is also important to remember the difference in international law between the branches of international humanitarian law and human rights law since the latter is more state-centric and therefore more difficult to apply it to non-state actors. If there is an applicable theory, the non-state actor meets the requirements and the obligation originates from either international humanitarian law or customary international law, the non-state actor should in theory be bound by it.