Mark Drumbl and Mohamed Kamara Launch New Book in Geneva The book, "Children and Violence: Agency, Experience, and Representation in and Beyond Armed Conflict" was published by Routledge Press earlier this year.

Law Communications
October 17, 2025

On October 9, 2025, Washington and Lee professors Mark Drumbl and Mohamed Kamara launched their recent co-edited book at an event in Geneva, Switzerland. The book, “Children and Violence: Agency, Experience, and Representation in and Beyond Armed Conflict” was published by Routledge Press earlier this year.

Drumbl and Kamara were joined at the launch by the three other editors: Christelle Molima of the University of Lausanne, who completed her post-doc at W&L Law; Jastine Barrett, former Visiting Scholar at W&L; and Karl Hanson of the University of Geneva.

“The W&L footprint on this project is considerable and dates back to the very inception of this project in 2023, including key support provided by the Francis Lewis Law Center, the Center for International Education, the Pemberton Fund, and the Law Dean’s Office,” said Drumbl.

Harnessing expert contributions from over a dozen countries, the book examines the relationship between children and violence, with a focus on children ensnared in military conflict, embroiled in criminal gangs, and enmeshed in political activism. It analyses how children join fights, how they fight, and what happens to them after fighting officially ends. Drumbl says the book underscores the need to respect the agency and dignity of children and youth and to build cultures of juvenile rights.

The book is available via open access and has attracted considerable interest in the Global South already, with reviews appearing by Indonesian and Chinese academics in the literature. It has received rave reviews more generally:

• ‘I highly recommend this important volume, which examines how children are actors in different kinds of fights and struggles. Interconnecting areas of violence that are often fragmented and bringing forward voices from diverse countries, it sheds new light on children’s agency and ability to navigate and shape complex environments.’ Michael Wessells, Professor Emeritus, Program on Forced Migration and Health, Columbia University, USA
• ‘How do children fight? That is, how do young people experience concerted violence, whether it is called armed conflict, cartel criminality, cyberwar, or something else? Seeking answers through multidisciplinary research by authors from around the globe, this rich collection opens paths for an empirically grounded, fully inclusive child rights practice.’ Diane Marie Amann, Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law, USA
• ‘This multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted, and multi-regional volume is a welcome contribution to scholarship on child-related violence. It offers important insights on violence in various forms and contexts, ranging from armed conflict, cyber warfare, and trafficking to economic, gendered, and racialized violence, among others. Taken as a whole, the chapters in this edited collection enrich, reframe, and expand debates on the relationship between childhood and violence.’ Hedi Viterbo, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Law, Founding Director of the Childhood, Law & Policy Network (CLPN), Queen Mary University of London, UK

In addition, while in Switzerland, Drumbl also workshopped a new project, co-authored with W&L Law student Will Vardy ’26L, on the effect one man – German chemist Fritz Haber – had on the development of international law. This workshop was held at the Geneva Graduate Institute. The project examines the moral responsibility of scientists through a study of Fritz Haber, who developed chemical weapons in World War I and, while an indicted war criminal, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1920 for his work on synthetic fertilizers, which are still used today and have significantly increased human life expectancy globally.