Ochrana práv dítěte za ozbrojeného konfliktu

The aim of this contribution is to examine the applicability and effectiveness of the norms of IHL and human rights relating to children in armed conflict situation. The question must be asked and answered in the context where the nature of armed conflicts has undergone profound changes since the 83 major international treaties, such as the 1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Geneva Protocols, were drafted. New armed conflicts; international as well as non-international are conducted in ways that have a profound, devastating impact on children, both as civilians and combatants. Question is, how does the international law effectively apply to armed conflicts that do not conform to earlier IHL models and their very aim has been the genocidal annihilation of ethnic group including its children, as in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. As clearly political trendy issue of the world community, new legal instruments have been created; UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), including its art. 38, a provision that traditionally belongs to the IHL, the Child Soldiers Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflicts. The issue was also introduced in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the 1999 ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child work dealing with child soldiers. On the regional level, the only binding instrument was adopted, containing provisions on child recruitment and use in armed conflicts – African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990). Moreover, UN resolutions and recommendations discuss the issue, reports and extensively outlined disastrous effects of armed conflicts on children. New political and legal activities express broadly accepted conviction that children caught up in armed conflict constitute a group particularly vulnerable to human rights violations. In this way can be explained the inclusion of art. 38 in CRC. Being an IHL provision in human rights treaty, art. 38 contributes to fill a gap in the protection of the rights of children in armed conflicts. Hybrid character of art. 38 makes it possible to expand certain IHL features and new trends to human rights law. In the same way, being part of human rights treaty, art. 38 of CRC can also contribute to the actual interpretation of IHL. As to the significance of art. 38, the contribution of the Committee on Rights of the Child is the most important. Its concluding observations can actually change States Parties policies, legislation and practice. It is hoped that CRC Committee continues to be important actor in the era of application in which international community redirects its energy from the juridical task of the developing standards of protection of children in armed conflicts to the political projects of ensuring their application and respect on the ground.