Children and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, by Professor Diane Marie Amann

Transitional Justice Institute: Public Lectures and Events

UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security contains more than a dozen mentions of young people; to be precise, it refers twice to “women and children” and thirteen times to “women and girls.” Since the resolution’s adoption twenty years ago, many initiatives have arisen to combat conflict-related harms to children. These include the Children and Armed Conflict Agenda launched by Security Council Resolution 1612 (2005), the Policy on Children of the International Criminal Court Prosecutor (2016), and other inter- and non-governmental efforts. This seminar will evaluate the WPS resolution, twenty years on, as a child-rights instrument. Consideration of the interim initiatives will help frame that assessment, as will evolving understandings of children’s sexual and gender identities, of children’s agency and children’s autonomy – all factors that may counsel against too-quick conjoinments of “children,” or “girls,” with “women.”

Diane Marie Amann is Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law. She is also Special Adviser to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict.

This event is part of the WPS@20 seminar hosted by the Ulster University Transitional Justice Institute to mark the upcoming 20th anniversary of the adoption of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security by the United Nations Security Council.