Protective mechanisms to strengthen the position of children affected by armed conflict

Palestinian children continue to bear the brunt of the Israeli–Palestine conflict and are denied their basic human rights as a consequence. A total of 1800 civilians have been killed in Gaza since July 8^th, 2014, out of which >300 were children. This conflict of ideology, power and establishment of claim for ‘territorial sovereignty’ between armed groups weighs heavily on the minds and lives of children. In situations of armed conflict, children are increasingly brought before the justice system, both at international and national levels, either as victims and witnesses or to stand trial as defendants; also the status of ‘Refugee children’ is not clear in the international law of armed conflict. This has exposed the grey areas in legal and judicial systems where children's participation in armed conflict has been rarely anticipated. This paper articulates that how children who have suffered grave violation during armed conflict can access justice, also how the current system deals with the child victim and witnesses. The paper also explores the issue surrounding responsibility of children who may have committed international crime during conflict, the nature of their accountability and where they should be placed in the spectrum between total impunity and total responsibility, to unravel the same the author proposes ‘ratio theory’. This paper discusses the following issues and provides various mechanisms and theories thereof to elucidate the given issues. First, it determines that how a protective legal framework can be provided to affected children, in during post-periods of armed conflict, for which the author provides a framework of quasi-judicial body which would deal with the same on the principles of DDR (disarmament, demobilisation, re-integration). Secondly, it endeavors into the ‘legal status’ of refugee children during armed conflict for which it provides interconnection of humanitarian law and refugee law via doctrine of ‘complementary protection’.