legislation & policy

Stop recruiting children, rights groups tell MoD

Twenty major children’s and human rights organisations have written to the UK government today, calling for an end to the recruitment of children by the UK armed forces.

The Armed Forces Bill: lost opportunities and some dubious proposals

The Armed Forces Bill proposes important changes to the military justice system and will make civil society obligations under the Armed Forces Covenant a legal duty. We look at these and other matters of interest that have come up in the process.

The Integrated Review: enmeshing and strengthening the military

The government’s new defence and foreign policy review prioritises military thinking and interests at the expense of other international approaches and vital human security goals. Here we look at some of the Review's key elements and the implications of this new vision.

Creating barriers to justice

We take a look at the extensive criticism that the controversial Overseas Operations Bill is gathering as it makes its way through Parliament and how, without serious challenge, this self interested legislation will create barriers to justice for all those caught up in warfare.

The Overseas Operations Bill: A Tale Of Two Militarisms? 

The Labour party is finally engaging with a bill that could rewrite the law around prosecutions for actions in war and the derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to overseas operations.

Boris Johnson’s government and the military: a look ahead at 2020

#GE2019: security & defence

A potted analysis of existing positions and manifesto pledges of Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, the major nationalist parties and the Greens.

The British armed forces: Why raising the recruitment age would benefit everyone

A briefing (Child Soldiers International, 2019) making the case for setting 18 as the minimum age for recruitment.

Selling the Military films

At the launch event for our report with Medact on Selling the Military: A critical analysis of contemporary recruitment marketing in the UK, contributors and participants told us why they think this is an important issue. And a longer film of the presentation summarising the report.

Selling the military: A critical analysis of contemporary recruitment marketing in the UK

This report, written by ForcesWatch and published with the public health charity Medact,  analyses the way the armed forces market their careers to adolescents and young people, creating powerful messages that which exploit developmental vulnerabilities and social inequality, risking the health and well-being of recruits. Narratives of camaraderie and self-development also serve to promote an uncontroversial and depoliticised idea of the military more widely which promote self-fulfilment in the context of conflict.