Razing Child Soldiers‪.‬

This article traces the usages of the term 'the child' as a legal concept set in dialectical relationships on three levels of narrative. First, the emergence of the child in international law is described and read critically as a progress narrative imparting a tale of the historical emergence of children's rights. The second section examines the text of the "Child Soldiers Case" in Sierra Leone as a moment of confronting, and ultimately repressing, the 'child soldier' as a legal fiction. The third section attempts to locate the dislocated author and addressee of the primary narratives of the child soldiers' story, and draws out the uses of childhood as a rhetorical stabilizer in the absolute unstable: war. **********