Our Programme on International Peace and Security (IPS) announces a new partnership with Save the Children on a research project concerned with Overcoming Barriers to Accountability for Crimes Affecting Children in Armed Conflict. The new project is being led by IPS Executive Director Federica D’Alessandra, alongside IPS Visiting Fellow of Practice Sareta Ashraph and IPS Consultant Jelia Sane (Doughty Street Chambers).
This research project will seek to identify and overcome barriers to investigation, documentation and indictment of conflict-related crimes against/ affecting children in conflict, including crimes which target civilian infrastructures/civilian populations but which have a particularly lethal and adverse impact on children, provide insight into the importance of an age-disaggregated and gender-sensitive approaches to investigations, recognising that “children” are not a monolith, and provide recommendations on policy and behavioural change covering both investigative/documentary bodies, as well as prosecutorial units.
2019 marked Save the Children’s centenary year, and a prioritisation of policy, advocacy and programming efforts to protect children in conflict. There are three pillars to this work – upholding standards and norms in conflict, holding perpetrators of grave violations against children to account, and taking practical action to protect children and enable their recovery. As part of this work, Save the Children reached out to our expert team to develop new insight against the second pillar in particular. This project also supports our broader research portfolio on strengthening accountability for international crimes.
