THE LEGAL TERM OF A CHILD IN INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW

Although the first international treaties that make up international humanitarian law (IHL) entered into force in the late 19th century, there were, until the adoption of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, no IHL instruments that include any specific provisions on child protection. In the absence of a clear legal term of a child, applicable as lex specialis in IHL, the author tries to prove that the article 1 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child might be applied.