Modern warfare has inflicted unprecedented suffering upon children across the world. NATO’s role and responsibilities towards children of war requires immediate attention.
In today’s world, children are facing brutal impacts of conflict and war. This is reflected in these confronting statistics:
- In 2024 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recorded that ‘[c]lose to half a billion children are (…) living in conflict zones around the world’ and that this is ‘double the number from 1990’.
- In his 2023 annual report on children in armed conflict, the UN Secretary General observed that the killing and maiming of children, one the six grave violations against children during armed conflict, had increased by 35% from the previous year.
- Last month, UNICEF reported that ‘more than 50,000 children are reportedly killed or injured in [Gaza]’.
Due to the many armed conflicts around the world, the rights of children as laid down in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) are seriously at risk. This is particularly true for children’s right to life, survival and development, one of the CRC’s general principles.
As the NATO summit is taking place on 24-25 June 2025 in The Hague, the International City of Peace and Justice, this is an opportune moment to highlight NATO’s role and responsibility in protecting children from becoming victims of modern warfare.
The impact of weapons trade on children
From Gaza to Ukraine, from Sudan to Myanmar, children have increasingly become victims of modern warfare – and often, the weapons used against them are supplied by third-party states. These arms-supplying countries frequently argue that they bear no responsibility for how their weapons are used. This position is coming under pressure, however, due to an increasing demand for accountability for the impacts of war on children.
As the global arms trade reaches record highs, the world is grappling with a fundamental question: What obligations do third-party states have when the weapons they export are used to harm children? The answer
lies at the intersection of international humanitarian law, human rights law, and a shifting landscape of global accountability – where legal responsibilities are becoming harder to ignore, and political complicity more difficult to deny.
While NATO is fundamentally a defensive alliance, its indirect role in the international arms trade cannot be overlooked. NATO member states are among the world’s largest arms exporters. Additionally, NATO’s collective defence posture and strategic alignments influence how, where, and to whom its members export arms. This complicates questions of accountability when NATO-aligned states transfer weapons that are later used in ways that violate international humanitarian law – particularly when children are among the casualties.
A framework without enforcement
NATO promotes a shared commitment to democratic values, transparency, and civilian protection through various initiatives like the Building Integrity Programme and the NATO Code of Conduct. However, these frameworks are not binding and offer no mechanism to investigate or sanction member states for supplying arms that contribute to violations against children in conflict zones.
This creates a vacuum where political alliances may take precedence over human rights concerns. For example, arms transfers by NATO states to countries involved in active conflicts – such as Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen or Israel’s operations in Gaza – have raised serious questions about whether NATO states are doing enough to prevent their weapons from being used in attacks that harm children.
Nato’s leadership role concerning children’s rights
If NATO is to uphold its stated values, it should step up and play a leadership role by encouraging more rigorous human rights and children’s rights safeguards in arms transfers among its members.
For example, NATO should establish a child rights impact assessment process
to assess the potential use of arms exports in violations against children. It should call for the inclusion of clauses that uphold children’s rights in defence agreements, in line with the CRC, requiring to ensure respect for rules of international humanitarian law and take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children affected by an armed conflict (Art. 38 (1) and (4) CRC; see also OPAC).
In relation to this, NATO should support and cooperate with independent investigations – such as UN fact-finding missions – into the use of NATO-supplied weapons in conflicts where children are victims.
Ultimately, NATO cannot afford to treat arms exports as merely a matter of national trade policy. When the weapons supplied by its members are used to harm children, the alliance’s moral and legal credibility is at stake. NATO has a duty towards children and it has to step up to protect children from attacks on their human rights and fundamental freedoms.