Juvenile Justice in Belligerent Occupation Regimes: Comparing the Coalition Provisional Authority Administration in Iraq with the Israeli Military Government in the Territories Administered by Israel

Abstract

This article examines the juvenile justice systems unique to occupation regimes, basing the analysis of this type of system on the case studies of the Israeli occupation in the administered territories and the former Coalition Provisional Authority Administration in Iraq. We maintain that the changing nature of occupation regimes has bearing on their juvenile justice systems, demanding more protections for the rights of children within these criminal structures. These protections can be awarded either through direct application of human rights law or by amending the specific laws that administer territories under occupation.

In the second section, we discuss the major goals of juvenile justice both in comparative law and in international law. In the third section, we proceed to examine the history of the changes experienced by occupation regimes: from belligerent occupations to transformative occupations and from short-term to long-term ones- and their effect on the means for realizing the obligations of the occupying power. In the fourth section, we discuss the mutual application of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in occupied territories through the prism of the objectives of the juvenile justice system in general, and in occupied territories in particular. We maintain that there must be a more extensive application of human rights law in the juvenile justice systems in occupation regimes. We substantiate our claims through the analysis of the case study of detention, prosecution, and adjudication of children in formerly occupied Iraq. In the fifth section, we turn to Israel, discussing the Juvenile Courts and the developments in the legislation of the juvenile justice system in the territories administered by the Israeli army.

Keywords: juvenile justice, belligerent occupation, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq, U.S., convention on the rights of the child, coalition provisional authority