On 12-13 June 2008, No Peace Without Justice will participate in the Expert Meeting on Children and Transitional justice held at UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) in Florence, leading the session on “Basic assumptions and legal framework of transitional justice” and illustrating the activities that NPWJ is conducting on this issue in the framework of its International Criminal Justice Program.
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The purpose of the meeting is to discuss an Expert Paper Series on Children and Transitional Justice, which is intended to provide substantive and evidence-based knowledge to encourage more effective strategies on transitional justice and children, both at the national and international levels.
The meeting is also aimed at establishing a network of practitioners, academics, child rights advocates and legal experts to increase knowledge-sharing of experiences, good practices and lessons learned, with a view to improve accountability and to promote the participation of children and adolescents in truth, justice and reconciliation processes in post-conflict situations.
The issue of children and their participation in international criminal justice and other accountability mechanisms continues to grow in relevance and urgency, particularly given the number of child victims, witnesses and perpetrators of crimes under international law, and the measures being taken to address the issues by various actors, including the ICC. The participation of children in international criminal justice and other accountability mechanisms is now one of the major policy issues facing international criminal justice today.
NPWJ has experience and specific expertise on the issue of children and international criminal justice, having co-authored the seminal book on the subject with the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre and having cooperated closely with UNICEF in drafting a brief on the customary law status of child soldiers that was submitted to the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the case of The Prosecutor v Hinga Norman.
For further information, contact Alison Smith on asmith@npwj.org or +32-486-986 235 or Nicola Giovannini on ngiovannini@npwj.org or +32-2-548-3913.
