2023 Edition

We are pleased to announce that after undergoing double blind peer review, the articles below have been accepted for publication by the Asia-Pacific Journal of International Humanitarian Law for its 2023 Edition.

The tentative titles and abstracts of the accepted articles are as follows:

• Child Soldier To Warlord Overnight: Sentencing Ongwen in the International Criminal Court by Rebecca Lloyd

  • In December 2022, the International Criminal Court (ICC) delivered its appeal decision in in the case of Dominic Ongwen, a child solider-turned-commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda, who had been convicted and sentenced of numerous war crimes in 2021. The case has reopened the debate about how international courts should deal with child soldiers-turned-perpetrators, or CSTPs, in sentencing. It is contended that the ICC eschewed a protectionist approach towards CSTPs. That approach is contrasted with the rights-based approach enshrined in the United Nations 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the author’s view, the majority of the ICC’s reasoning did not reflect Ongwen’s complex individual circumstances. It is advocated that further attention should be given to sentencing CSTPs in the future.
  
  These articles are currently undergoing copy editing and will be published online as soon as the editing process has been completed. A consolidated Edition will be released in digital and printed form by October 2023.
  
  The Asia-Pacific Journal of International Humanitarian Law (APJIHL) is a publication of the Institute of International Legal Studies-University of the Philippines Law Center (UP-IILS) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The Journal seeks to produce peer-reviewed scholarly articles, book reviews, and commentary on significant developments and current issues in international humanitarian law and related fields. It has a special focus on the Asia-Pacific region, and is published once a year.