Statement by Ambassador E. Michael Southwick
United Nations Working Group on Child Soldiers Protocol
Final Session
January 21, 2000

Thank you, Madame Chair.

The United States is pleased to join consensus on this historic Protocol. We congratulate the Chair for her wise, graceful, understanding, and decisive leadership. We congratulate all delegations for showing the necessary political will to achieve agreement.

This Protocol represents a huge step forward in our common effort to deal effectively with the problem of child soldiers.

As we have stated on several occasions, the core issue for us has always been the forcible recruitment of very young children in local armed conflicts around the world, where they may be maimed, killed, exposed to drugs and alcohol, sexually abused, and brutalized in many ways. By addressing the practices of non-state actors, this agreement strikes at the heart of the problem of child soldiers.

The agreement also deals in a realistic -- and therefore effective way -- with the issue of minimum ages for conscription, voluntary recruitment, and participation in hostilities.

As for participation in hostilities, the Optional Protocol will require states parties to "take all feasible measures" to ensure that soldiers in national armed forced under the age of 18 "do not take a direct part in hostilities." The terms in Article 1, with their roots in international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict, are clear, well understood, and contextually relevant. Indeed, we will take all the steps we feasibly can to ensure that under 18 year old service personnel do not take a direct part in hostilities. While the standard recognizes that in exceptional cases, it may not be feasible for a commander to withhold or remove such a person from taking a direct part in hostilities, we believe that this is an effective, sensible, and practical standard that will promote the object we all seek: protecting children and ensuring that this Protocol has the widest possible adherence and support.

In our view, the provisions in the Protocol promoting international cooperation and international assistance in the areas of rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who have been victimized by acts contrary to the Protocol, are particularly useful. The United States has contributed more than $20 million per year in recent years to programs for children affected by war. We will continue to put a high priority on such programs.

We are also extremely pleased with the strong provisions for reporting, compliance, and follow-up. This must not be just another agreement put on the shelf and forgotten. It is important that we all work together to ensure that the Protocol is faithfully implemented by all states parties.

With regard to the concerns expressed by France about allowing the United States to become a party to the protocol without being a party to the underlying convention, the United States understands that any State that ratifies the Protocol is bound to accept also the relevant principles of the articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that are cited in the Protocol.

We have stressed all along that this Protocol, to be effective and meaningful, must be one that is both widely ratifiable and widely implementable. I believe we have been successful in achieving that objective.

We look forward to working with all of our international partners in the years ahead to achieve our common objective: eliminating the abuses committed against children in armed conflict.

Thank you.