GROOME MAKES SUBMISSION TO THE PROSECUTOR OF THE ICC REGARDING HIS POLICY ON CHILDREN
June 2023 — This month, Professor Dermot Groome submitted a proposal for changes to the Office of the Prosecutor’s 2016 Policy on Children. Groome’s submission proposes that child soldiers be reconceptualized within the legal framework of international humanitarian law to ensure that they have maximal protections when they are unlawfully incorporated into an armed formation.
This past winter, Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the ICC and Véronique Aubert, Special Advisor to the Prosecutor on Crimes Against and Affecting Children, invited scholars and practitioners to make submissions on the prosecution’s current policies regarding children impacted by conflict.
Groome’s submission addressed a current lacuna in the legal protections afforded child soldiers. These children, despite the unlawfulness of being incorporated into an armed formation, lose their civilian status under international humanitarian law (IHL) and are treated as combatants with minimal protection. These children are not only exposed to the realities of armed combat but are often the victims of crimes like rape, sexual enslavement and inhumane treatment by members of the armed force that unlawfully conscripted them.
Groome proposes that the ICC Prosecutor, as a matter of policy, advocate for an interpretation of IHL that extends the protections afforded civilians in armed conflict to children unlawfully incorporated into armed formations vis‐à‐vis the adult members of the formation that unlawfully incorporated them.
While Groome recognizes children actively participating in hostilities must be treated as combatants vis-à-vis belligerent forces, he proposes that they maintain civilian status vis-à-vis members of the force that conscripted them. He argues that those who perpetrate the crime of using child soldiers, should not be able to strip children of their civilian protections under IHL and enjoy impunity for other crimes they may commit against these vulnerable children.
A copy of Groome’s submission may be found here.
Professor Dermot Groome is a Professor of Law and the Harvey A. Feldman Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Penn State Dickinson Law. Much of his teaching, scholarship, and service focus on emerging areas of human rights and international criminal law and draw upon his deep expertise and experiences. After starting his career in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office where he was a member of the Sex Crimes Unit and after working in Jamaica, W.I. on issues of community development, human rights, and children’s rights, Professor Groome worked in Cambodia. While in Cambodia, he served as a Legal Advisor to the International Human Rights Law Group, helped lead an investigation into a 1997 attack on peaceful protestors and drafted a report for the UN Security Council, helped the Cambodia Defender’s Project and Legal Aid of Cambodia investigate deaths in police custody, worked on issues related to the incarceration of children, and wrote a draft juvenile criminal procedure code. Professor Groome subsequently spent over 11 years as a senior war crimes prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He investigated and drafted the first genocide indictment against a sitting head of state, Slobodan Milošević, and was the Senior Trial Attorney for the Bosnia indictment. In total, Groome led the prosecution of five international criminal trials including the case against Ratko Mladić, who was convicted of genocide for the murder of over 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995. He led eight large complex international investigations of senior military, political, and police officials. Groome’s cases all included crimes of sexual violence against women, men, and children. He was instrumental in the development of Joint Criminal Enterprise, a theory of criminal responsibility often used to assess the culpability of senior officials for the crimes committed by their subordinates. Two documentaries have been made about Professor Groome’s cases: The Trial of Ratko Mladić (PBS/Frontline 2019) and Crimes Before the ICTY: Višegrad (UN TV 2017).