Book Review: Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663913502278b |
| Author | Nesam McMillan |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
situation as abolitionist versus pro-death penalty nations? By assuming that the death
penalty is vestigial in the world, the volume places the historiography of the death pen-
alty in the same stage as the history of slavery was when it was only written as if from the
viewpoint of its critics. It was only when scholars began to grapple with the real power of
slavery as an institution that we became able to understand its dynamism in the modern
world.
The problem with this situation is that it prevents a serious engagement with the pro-
ponents of the death penalty. If we rule out of hand the possibility that the punishment is
anything but primitive and archaic how far can we get toward understanding its support?
It is a sign of the strength of this volume that it demands that this question be raised. But
it is a question that needs to be addressed more fully. Perhaps Sarat and Marshukat will
provide a volume that addresses it in the near future.
MICHAEL MERANZE
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
MARK A DRUMBL, Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy, Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press, 2012; pp. 239, ISBN 9780199592661, £17.99 (pbk).
In his latest book, Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy, Mark
A. Drumbl undertakes a controversial move: he seeks to unsettle the dominant global
image of the child soldier as a faultless passive victim. At a time when there is a
growing preference in international law and practice to view child soldiers primarily
as victims and nonresponsible for their actions, Reimagining Child Soldiers aims to
start a conversation about the agency and potential accountability of child soldiers.
The strength of this contribution, however, stems from the ethics that underpins it.
It is a conceptual intervention that is driven by the desire to consider what understand-
ings of child soldiers and responses to this practice can best address the interests of
these children, their victims, and their communities, while achieving some form of
justice.
In recent years, the phenomenon of child soldiering, particularly in African contexts,
has received increasing international attention. Reimagining Child Soldiers orients the
reader to current knowledge about and approaches toward child soldiering. Chapter 1
discusses existing global discourses about and responses to child soldiering, highlighting
the prevailing image of the child soldier as a passive faultless victim, and sets out the
parameters of Drumbl’s proposed reimagining of the practice of child soldiering and the
way it is addressed. Chapter 2 then provides a critical review of current conventional
knowledge of the phenomenon, before Chapter 3 accounts for perspectives on child
soldiering – such as in-depth, ethnographic research with children themselves – which
provides a different, yet marginalized, viewpoint on its nature and dynamics. The
following two chapters then document legal and policy approaches to the accountability
of child soldiers (Chapter 4) and the recruitment and participation of child soldiers in
Book Reviews 589
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