About the Journal
In January 1994, General Dallaire, then the Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), sent a fax to UN headquarters in New York warning of the impending genocide. He signed the fax with the line “peux ce que veux. Allons-y” – “Where there‘s a will, there‘s a way. Let‘s go.” At the time, there was not a will among the international community, with lethal results for nearly a million Rwandans.
Since then, General Dallaire has worked tirelessly to ensure that there is both a will and a way to prevent mass atrocities in the future. However, action must be informed by understanding for it to be effective, and this has led to General Dallaire‘s focus on preventing the recruitment and use of children in armed violence. The creation and adoption of the Vancouver Principles on Peacekeeping and the Prevention of the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in 2017, is helping to focus and drive action by the international community to prevent the recruitment and use of children in armed violence through ensuring that security sector actors are trained and prepared to prevent recruitment. Doing so requires learning from experiences and sharing knowledge on all aspects of training, education, research, and prevention in this area.
Published since 2016, the Dallaire Institute annual publication Allons-y, now has a focus on supporting the implementation of the Vancouver Principles. In this and future issues, commentaries and peer-reviewed research and policy articles will focus on all aspects of the implementation of the Vancouver Principles. The articles provide guidance, policy recommendations, and new knowledge to support the international community‘s work to end the recruitment and use of children in armed violence.
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