University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann discussed her research on child-taking at a side event occurring during the 24th annual Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court, held in early December at The Hague in The Netherlands.

Entitled “Vanished Voices: The Plight of Missing Children from Ukraine, Syria and Sudan,” the event was co-sponsored by the government of Ukraine and by Global Rights Compliance, a nongovernmental organization.

In addition to Professor Amann, additional panelists included: Hala Turjman, Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic: Alla Perfetska, Voices of Children; and Ikhlass Ahmed Altaher Eisa, Strategic Initiatives for Women in the Horn of Africa. Ukraine’s Ambassador to The Netherlands, Andriy Kostin, provided opening and closing remarks, and Wayne Jordash KC, president of the Global Rights Compliance Foundation, moderated the panel.

Amann is Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and a Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center here at Georgia Law. During her current research-intensive semester, she is an Affiliate Academic at University College London Faculty of Laws.

From 2012 to 2021 Amann served as International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict. Her many publications on international child law include two that analyze the long-standing criminal phenomenon by which a state (or other powerful entity) takes a child and then endeavors to alter, erase or remake the child’s identity. These two articles are  “Child-Taking Justice and the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative,” 119 American Journal of International Law 629 (2025), and “Child-Taking,” 45 Michigan Journal of International Law 305 (2024).