INTRODUCTION

The number of child soldiers appears to have decreased slightly during the past several years, due to solutions in some long-term conflicts and significant releases of children. This is no doubt partly the result of the consistent advocacy and action taken by actors in the different spheres of transitional justice. Recently escalating conflicts, however, have generated significant reports of new recruitments of children under varying degrees of coercion to be used by armed forces and groups to wage war. There is still significant work to be done: the 2014 report includes the listing of eight government forces and 51 armed groups.

Approaching the issue of child recruitment from the perspective of transitional justice provides a fresh perspective on ways to prevent and redress this grave violation of children's rights. This approach aims to systematize the law, knowledge, and practice across a wide range of legal fields. It allows for a synthesis of legal debate, a greater understanding of the established law and principles, and a more informed basis for practical engagement with transitional justice mechanisms.

This concluding chapter focuses on two main streams: (1) it undertakes a final legal analysis of the law related to child recruitment, and (2) it makes suggestions about the way forward and how the different aspects of transitional justice can more successfully come together.

ANALYSING INTERNATIONAL LAW RELEVANT TO CHILD RECRUITMENT THROUGH THE TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE FRAMEWORK

This section brings together the lessons from having used the transitional justice framework as the point of departure. It begins with an exploration of the outcomes of having used the framework and then considers the conclusions that can be made on the state of the art with respect to international law related to child recruitment.

ADVANTAGES OF AN OVERALL FRAMEWORK

The key advantage of looking at children's issues through the lens of transitional justice rather than a single area of law is that it is possible to consider the entire “life cycle” of the event of child recruitment, from root causes and prevention to the nature of the violation itself, along with the options and solutions to address the violation.