Youth: International law on the recruitment of children

The recruitment of children raises many important questions, the most important being whether children should be recruited at all and what is the definition of a child. The most internationally accepted definition for a child soldier is established in the Cape Town Principles 1997 by UNICEF: “any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.”1 However, this is not a legal definition.