On 20 May 2013, the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict (Working Group) held a discussion on options to deal with persistent perpetrators of grave violations against children (i.e., those parties to conflicts who have been listed in the Secretary-General’s annual reports for five or more consecutive years). This discussion followed the request of the Security Council, in resolutions 1998 (2011) and 2068 (2012), to “consider a broad range of options for increasing pressure on persistent perpetrators of violations and abuses committed against children in situations of armed conflict”.
The Working Group’s discussion built on the February workshop organized by Watchlist on the same topic on children and armed conflict, in conjunction with the Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein and the Liechtenstein Institute for Self-Determination at Princeton University. His Excellency Christian Wenaweser, Permanent Representative of Liechtenstein to the United Nations, introduced the findings and recommendations from the report of the workshop. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, updated the Working Group on her office’s efforts to address different categories of persistent perpetrators and recommended actions that the Working Group, Security Council and Member States could take. Following these interventions, members of the Working Group discussed how to best tackle the problem of persistent perpetrators.
