Protection Of The Rights Of Children In Armed Conflict In International Law

Although peace and development is the mainstream of today’s world, there are still some regional armed conflicts and armed conflict for national struggle in some parts of the world, which pose great challenges to the normal life of local civilians.In December last year, the outbreak of armed conflict in the Central African Republic caused at least133children being killed or amputatated, and some have even been deliberately beheaded. Brutal violence like this are quite common in armed conflicts. Although the United Nations’Convention on the Rights of the Child, Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court are formulated to protect the rights of children in armed conflict, the protection of children’s rights is being overlooked in the armed conflict. There are loopholes in international regulations for the protection of children’s rights and those laws and regulations are not fully impleted (the parties involved refuse to comply with the laws of war and treaties forbid the political use of religion in armed conflicts), humanitarian relief remains imbalanced, the role of international criminal organizations has been blocked and relief system of the Committee on the rights of Children is not comprehensive. Therefore, those practical difficulties hamper the realization of the rights of children in armed conflict. The international community has not made in-depth research and provided practical suggestions on how to solve this problem and strengthen the awareness of the protection of the rights of children in armed conflict. As a result, studies on how to achieve the the rights of children in armed conflict set by the international laws has become an urgent and realistic issue.Based on the real situation, the paper mainly focuses on three areas:the perfection of the international law on the protection of children’s rights, the implementation of the international protection of children’s rights, and the strengthening of the role of international institutions to protect the rights of children and also possible suggestions would be provided. The aim of this paper is to reflect the reality of child abuse caused by armed conflict with a major focus on the special significance of the protection of the rights of children in armed conflicts.