Conscripting 17-year-olds, who are entitled to special protection, violates international law, stated hirado.hu, Jr. Zoltán Lomnici. The constitutional lawyer also spoke about how US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's statement regarding young people in Ukraine relates to the international principles of youth protection.

- US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urged that younger age groups be involved in the war in Ukraine. Does this statement exhaust the category of incitement to a war crime?

- Antony Blinken's latest proposal now recommends sending Ukrainian youth between the ages of 18 and 25 to war. The American foreign minister does all this in such a way that the lower limit of conscription was reduced to 25 years just a few months ago, and all of this indirectly tells a lot about the horrors of the war. Nevertheless, as far as the dimension of law is concerned, it is worth noting that Article 8 of the Rome Statute, adopted on July 17, 1998, classifies it as an expressis verbis war crime - that is, a serious violation of the law and customs applicable to international armed conflicts created within the framework of international law - Enlistment or enlistment of children under the age of 15 in the national armed forces, or their active participation in hostilities use. The regulation is based on the universal understanding that the rights of younger age groups, especially children, enjoy special protection in the matter of war and participation in war, given, among other things, the harmful and wide-ranging effects and long-term consequences of armed conflicts on them. And although Blinken's current statements do not directly violate the provisions of the relevant international law, on the one hand they go against this spirit of international legal development, and on the other hand they relativize the international legal principles regarding the special protection of minors. Despite this, unfortunately, the position of the outgoing US Secretary of State is shared by several pro-war Western leaders, including, for example, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

- Ukraine's positions are very unfavorable - although even 17-year-olds would be conscripted , the army is forced to give up settlements in the Donbas one after another. Does international law sanction the conscription of minors ?

- The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000 in order to act more effectively against the involvement of children in armed conflicts.

The optional protocol is considered a treaty in its own right, the states that are parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child are free to ratify it, which Ukraine itself did in 2004. This protocol contains several provisions for the protection of minors.

"What are these?"

- According to the first article, States Parties must take all possible measures to ensure that members of their armed forces under the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities.

The second article stipulates that the states parties shall ensure that persons under the age of 18 may not be compulsorily recruited into their armed forces. And Article 3 declares that the States Parties shall raise the minimum age set in the Convention on the Rights of the Child for the voluntary recruitment of persons into their domestic armed forces - 15 years of age - taking into account the principles laid down in the Article and recognizing that, according to the Convention, 18 persons under the age of 10 are entitled to special protection. All this means that the conscription of 17-year-olds violates international law, namely in relation to a group of subjects entitled to special protection.

- How can you evaluate the fact that, meanwhile, Joe Biden is trying to make his successor's job more difficult by escalating the war by authorizing depth strikes against Russia?

- These pro-war developments are clearly pushing the processes towards the escalation of the war. It can be stated quite concretely that the outgoing Democratic Party administration is currently trying to sacrifice the possibility of global security and stabilization, as well as the future on the altar of its own political goals - namely, the impossibility and prevention of the peace efforts of Donald Trump, who will soon take office. These recent steps - including the previously discussed proposals leading to a potential demographic catastrophe - raise questions not only from the point of view of respect for the basic principles of democracy and, relatedly, the results of democratic elections, as well as the existence of political decency, but at the same time, in relation to the moral integrity of pro-democratic decision-makers cause for concern.

Cover photo: jr. Zoltán Lomnici / Photo: hirado.hu