Children and Armed Conflict
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In September the Council is expected to hold an open debate on children and armed conflict. (Germany, the Council president for September, is also the chair of the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict.) The new Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, and Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous are expected to brief. It is also possible that a representative from civil society may speak.
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Security Council Report’s fifth Cross-Cutting Report on Children and Armed Conflict analyses statistical information on children and armed conflict in country-specific decisions of the Security Council and trends in 2011 and early 2012. It also suggests options for improving Security Council and Working Group decision making on this issue. After several years of largely positive developments and progress, in 2011 the protection of children in armed conflict agenda faced a number of challenges. Although it was possible for the Council in 2011 to adopt resolution 1998, expanding the criteria for inclusion in the Secretary-General’s annexes to include attacks on schools and hospitals, the repercussions of the differences that emerged during the negotiations are still being felt in 2012. While resolution 1973 on Libya set off a series of reactions that significantly affected Council dynamics in most areas of its work, our findings indicate that this did not affect the children and armed conflict agenda substantively although it may have led to a more cautious approach to the issue in order not to roll-back progress made in the past.
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On Monday (9 July) Council members and representatives from civil society and UN organisations will exchange ideas in an “Arria formula” meeting on how to deal with parties to conflict committing grave violations against children that have been listed in...
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Tomorrow afternoon (10 January) Council members will be briefed in consultations by the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy. This briefing is a follow-up to resolution 1998 (2011) in which the Council invited Coomaraswamy to brief it...
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It seems the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict will meet at 3 pm to adopt conclusions on the Secretary-General’s first report on children and armed conflict in Iraq. It appears that the Secretary-General’s report on children and armed...
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Council members at expert and deputy permanent representative level have been negotiating a draft resolution on children and armed conflict this week. Significant differences over some issues have emerged and need to be resolved before the open debate next Tuesday,...
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This is Security Council Report's fourth Cross-Cutting Report on Children and Armed Conflict. The first report in 2008 examined relevant data from 2003 to 2007 in resolutions, presidential statements, Council missions, Secretary-General's reports, peace agreements and peacekeeping mandates and tried to assess the degree to which the thematic issue of children and armed conflict had been addressed and reflected in the mainstream of the Council's overall work on country-specific situations. That report also examined the impact of the 2005 adoption of resolution 1612, which set up a monitoring and reporting mechanism and established the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. Our 2008 report also provided a baseline for the second and third reports published in April 2009 and June 2010. These two reports built on the historical background of the issue and analysed data for 2008 and 2009. They also highlighted key trends and options for the Council and the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict over those years. Continuing with this series of reports, the 2011 Cross-Cutting Report on Children and Armed Conflict now provides data on and analysis of trends in 2010.
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The Council is expected to discuss children and armed conflict in an open debate in mid-July, which is expected to be presided over by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. Germany is also the chair of the Council working group on children and armed conflict.
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On Monday, 23 May, the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, will be briefing the Somalia Eritrea Sanctions Committee. This will be her second briefing to a sanctions committee. (Last year in June she briefed the DRC...
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The Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict was released yesterday. The report provides information on grave violations committed against children, updates on progress made by parties to conflict on dialogue and action plans to halt the recruitment and...
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This afternoon (2 May) the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict will have a formal meeting where it is expected to adopt its conclusions on Chad and Afghanistan. At the start of the meeting Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative...
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The Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has been meeting weekly since January 2011 when Germany took up the chairmanship of the Working Group from Mexico. This Working Group has been at the forefront of implementing resolution 1612 and...
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Tomorrow, Council members will have informal consultations on three thematic areas on the Council’s agenda–protection of civilians, women, peace and security and children and armed conflict. This is the first time Council members will be considering these three areas together....
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There is talk that under the Brazilian presidency in February there will be consultations on how the Council can work more efficiently on protection issues. The aim appears to be to find ways of streamlining the Council’s work on these...
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This is Security Council Report’s third Cross-Cutting Report on Children and Armed Conflict. The first report in 2008 examined relevant data from 2003 to 2007 in resolutions, presidential statements, Council missions, Secretary-General’s reports, peace agreements and peacekeeping mandates in order to assess the degree to which the thematic issue of children and armed conflict has been addressed and reflected in the mainstream of the Council’s overall work on country-specific situations. That report also examined the impact of the 2005 adoption of resolution 1612, which set up a monitoring and reporting mechanism and established the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. Our 2008 report also provided a baseline for our second report published in April 2009. The second report built on the historical background of the issue and analysed data for 2008. It also highlighted key trends in 2008 and options for the Council and the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict during a period when a new resolution was starting to be discussed. Continuing with this series of reports, our 2010 Cross-Cutting Report on Children and Armed Conflict provides data on and analysis of how successful the Council was in 2009 in incorporating the discussions, principles and norms developed at the thematic level in its country-specific decisions. It also provides an updated assessment of the trends seen in the previous two reports.
