It is one of the more settled principles of international law, as authoritatively formulated by the Permanent Court of International Justice in the classic Chorzów Factory case,1 that a violation of international law entails responsibility and the obligation to make reparation in one form or another.2 When it concerns the activities of states, the basic rule is, all sorts of difficulties notwithstanding, relatively straightforward: states are responsible for internationally wrongful acts that can be attributed to them.3

The reference of disputes to international political institutions has a history as long as that of arbitration. For present purposes, however, it is unnecessary to go further back than 1919, when, with the creation of the League of Nations as a reaction to the First World War, the first attempt was made to establish a universal organisation with broad responsibilities in this area. Following the failure of the League, or more accurately its member states, to take effective action to forestall a second bloodbath, a fresh effort to bring disputes within the field of operations of a world organisation was made with the creation of the United Nations Organisation in 1945.1

Previous generations of ethnographers have described the successful adaptation of children to societies that are themselves successfully adapted to their environment and material circumstances (Korbin 1987b). But, as these patterns of cultural adaptation are stressed by global forces that overwhelm local coping strategies, the lives of children are adversely affected. Anthropologists are prominent in the corps of concerned observers working to understand the contexts in which contemporary children live and to offer ideas to improve their lot (Schwartzman 2001: 15).

We will see that the distinction posed at the outset between cherubs, chattel, and changelings continues to apply in the present and into the future. In the neontocracy, the elevation of children to god-like cherubs, and corollary expense, show no signs of slowing. Among the poor, parents continue to seek the means to divest themselves of unwanted changelings or to convert their offspring to usable chattel.

In the previous chapter, I surveyed the relative rank of children over time and across cultures. Children may occupy the apex of society (neontocracy) or the basement (gerontocracy) or points in between. In this chapter my intent is to view the beginnings of life in the more common gerontocracy. In a gerontocracy, Imperial China for example, “‘child,’ or tzû, is understood … as a social status relative to his or her elders. It denotes the subordinate, humble, and inferior status of a child in a subservient role to that of his or her elders, ancestors, and others in a hierarchically superior position” (Hsiung 2005:21).

Figure 8 depicts a specific case from Pamela Reynolds’ study of the Tonga of Zambia. Note that the lowest level is the earth and a stillborn is returned directly to the wild, without ceremony. As the individual survives, she or he ascends a ladder of value reflected in the place and manner of burial – which progresses from fully wild to domestic.

Much of the contemporary literature on children identifies the parent–child relationship as central to the functioning of society. Furthermore, this relationship is seen as largely unidirectional. That is, the parent has manifold obligations to his/her child, while the child has few, if any, to his/her parent. However, as we review literature on children in other societies, a very different picture emerges. For example, West African “Ijo perceive of inheritance as flowing from sons to fathers as readily as the reverse” (Hollos and Leis 1989: 29). This contrast is captured in the two “value pyramids” labeled gerontocracy and neontocracy (Figure 1) in the first chapter.

Usually, the constituent treaties of international organizations control who can join the organization, under what conditions, and following which procedure. This makes, in principle, perfect functionalist sense: this way, organizations and their member states may screen applicants in terms of whether or not they are able to contribute to the organization’s functions. In practice, needless to say, decisions on membership do not always follow a functionalist logic: as it turns out, such decisions are often influenced by, for example, human rights considerations, or considerations relating more generally to the politics of the state concerned.1

In the previous chapter we looked at childhood through the lens of dependency. Infants and children can be distinguished from the young of mammals, generally, because, while their brains are large and growing rapidly, representing over half of their metabolism, they remain virtually helpless and in an immature state for a very long time. Others must care for them. In this chapter, we will examine the flip side of that coin and look at how “brainy” but incompetent children set about acquiring their culture and becoming competent members, ultimately supporting their erstwhile caregivers. This process we might characterize as “making sense,” which incorporates two ideas. One is that the child must strive to understand or make sense of all that’s going on around him or her, and this begins in infancy. And two, the child strives to be accepted, to fit in.

Whatever activity one wishes to engage in, be it the sending of a postcard to a friend abroad or the purchase of a television set produced in a foreign country, it is more than likely that the activity is in one way or another regulated by the activities of an international organization. Indeed, there are few, if any, activities these days which have an international element but which are not the subject of activities of at least one, and quite often more than one, international organization.1 International organizations have developed into a pervasive phenomenon, and, according to most calculations, they even outnumber states.2

Judicial settlement involves the reference of disputes to permanent tribunals for a legally binding decision. It developed from arbitration, which accounts for the close similarity between the two, and in various forms is now available through a number of courts of general or specialised jurisdiction. Examples of the latter will be considered when we examine the Law of the Sea Convention in a later chapter, but the advantages and limitations of tribunals of specialised jurisdiction will be more readily appreciated if we first consider the International Court.

The means available for the settlement of international disputes are commonly divided into two groups. Those considered so far, namely, negotiation, mediation, inquiry and conciliation, are termed diplomatic means because the parties retain control of the dispute and may accept or reject a proposed settlement as they see fit. Arbitration and judicial settlement, on the other hand, are employed when what is wanted is a binding decision, usually on the basis of international law, and hence these are known as legal means of settlement.

In the fall of 1973, I took up residence in the polygynous household of Chief Wolliekollie in the Liberian village of Gbarngasuakwelle (Lancy 1996). While the chief was very gracious in welcoming me, in facilitating my research on the children of the village, and in providing me with accommodation in his sprawling house, he failed to introduce me to other members of his household. Strangers rarely visited Gbarngasuakwelle and, when they did, the chief knew they usually meant trouble and expense, so he did his best to ensure their stay was short and unobtrusive. There was no protocol for dealing with a resident ethnographer.

The household consisted of three of the chief’s four wives, an unmarried sister of one of them, their children, and a steady stream of temporary residents related to the chief or his wives.