Afghanistan AFG Article 5(1) of the Juvenile Code bars criminal responsibility below 12. Children aged 7 to 12 may nonetheless be made subject to warnings, supervision by social services or confinement to a rehabilitation centre, so the threshold does not prevent deprivation of liberty of younger children; the Committee on the Rights of the Child criticised exactly that practice in its concluding observations on Afghanistan's initial report (CRC/C/AFG/CO/1, 8 April 2011, paras. 74-75). The figure predates the change of authorities in 2021 and the applicable law in practice should be re-verified. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table's citation to the Juvenile Code. Asia 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Albania ALB Article 12 of the Criminal Code sets 14 for offences designated 'crimes' and 16 for the less serious category of 'criminal contraventions', so the figure recorded here is the lower of the two statutory thresholds. Set federally; no sub-national variation. No rebuttable capacity presumption applies once the relevant age is reached. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative statutory citation to Criminal Code art. 12; CRIN's profile was compiled in the 2010s and the figure should be re-verified against the current consolidated Code. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Algeria DZA Penal Code art. 49: children under 13 may be subject only to protection and education measures, not punishment. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has recorded that those measures include placement amounting to deprivation of liberty in re-education centres administered by the Ministry of Justice for children as young as 8, so the threshold bars punishment rather than custody. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Andorra AND The Qualified Law on Juvenile Justice 1999 (art. 3) provides that no person can be held liable for an offence committed while under 12. Set at national level. Juvenile sanctions may extend to young adults, which is why comparative tables sometimes report an upper figure of 21; that is the reach of juvenile sanctions, not the age of adult criminal jurisdiction. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative statutory citation to the Criminal Code. Europe 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Angola AGO Penal Code art. 17(1): no person may be held criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 14. The age was lowered from 16 when the 2006 Penal Code came into force, a change criticised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in CRC/C/AGO/CO/2-4 (19 October 2010), paras. 73-74 - a documented instance of the retrogression prohibited in principle by article 41 of the CRC and General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 22. Sentences are reduced by two thirds between 14 and 16 and by half between 16 and 18. The figure should be re-verified against the Penal Code enacted in 2020. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Antigua and Barbuda ATG Child Justice Act 2015, section 5: children may be held criminally responsible from 8. Under the Juvenile Act the courts must have regard to the welfare of those under 14. The threshold is among the lowest in the Caribbean and falls far below the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019). Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 8 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Argentina ARG Article 1 of Ley 22.278 (Regimen Penal de la Minoridad), as substituted by article 1 of Ley 22.803 of 1983, provides that a minor who has not reached 16 is not punishable; those aged 16 to 18 are not punishable for offences of private action or offences punishable by deprivation of liberty not exceeding two years, a fine or disqualification. The original 1980 text of Ley 22.278 set the age at 14, and versions of that original text still circulate, so the consolidated text (texto actualizado) must be used - this dataset verified the figure of 16 against the consolidated text published by InfoLEG. Criminal law is federal, so the threshold is uniform across the provinces even though juvenile procedure is provincial. Proposals to lower the age to 14 have recurred for two decades and a reform was reported in early 2026; this research could not verify any change to the consolidated text, and the verified figure of 16 is recorded. Americas 16 18 Ratified servicios.infoleg.gob.ar 20 September 2026 Armenia ARM Two statutory ages operate: general criminal liability from 16, and liability from 14 for a closed list of named (mainly violent) offences. The lower figure is recorded as the MACR because it is the lowest age at which criminal responsibility can attach. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has criticised dual-age systems of this kind in General Comment No. 24 (2019), paras. 26-27. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile (Criminal Code art. 24(1)-(2)) and the comparative table's citation to the same provision. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Australia AUS There is no single national minimum age. As at September 2026 the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 10 in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, and 10 for Commonwealth offences (Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) s 7.1). It is 12 in Victoria, from 30 September 2025 (Youth Justice Act 2024 (Vic) s 10), and 14 in the Australian Capital Territory, from 1 July 2025, subject to exceptions for certain serious and intentionally violent offences alleged against 12 and 13 year olds. The Northern Territory raised its age to 12 with effect from 1 August 2023 and returned it to 10 by legislation passed on 17 October 2024. Children in the ACT and Victoria may still be charged from age 10 with Commonwealth offences. Children aged 10 to 13 everywhere are additionally protected by doli incapax: the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the child knew the conduct was seriously wrong in a moral sense (RP v The Queen (2016) 259 CLR 641). That presumption is expressed statutorily in s 29(2) of the Criminal Code (Qld) and s 29 of the Criminal Code (WA), in s 11 of the Youth Justice Act 2024 (Vic), and, since 1 March 2026, in s 5 of the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 (NSW). The figure recorded in the 'macr' field is 10 because that is the age applying in most of the country and to Commonwealth offences. Cross-checked against the Australian Institute of Family Studies resource sheet, the Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services 2026 and jurisdiction-specific legislative sources. Oceania 10 Below 14 18 Not recorded aihw.gov.au 20 September 2026 Austria AUT Sections 1(1)-(2) and 4(2) of the Jugendgerichtsgesetz (Youth Court Act) bar punishment of anyone under 14 at the time of the act, and additionally exempt 14- and 15-year-olds where the misconduct is not serious and juvenile-justice intervention is not necessary. Set federally. Young adults aged 18 to 20 may be dealt with under juvenile procedure, which is why some tables show 21 as an upper figure. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the statutory citation in the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Azerbaijan AZE Criminal Code art. 20(1)-(2): general liability from 16, liability from 14 for named offences. Administrative commissions may deal with children under 14 and impose measures including placement in special correctional schools, so children below the MACR may still be deprived of liberty by administrative rather than criminal process. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code art. 20. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Bahrain BHR Penal Code art. 32 provides that no person under 15 at the time of the alleged offence may be held liable under the Code; such persons fall instead under the Juveniles Law. In substance 15 is the age of criminal majority - the age from which the adult criminal justice system applies - rather than a true floor on intervention, because the Juveniles Law permits measures against younger children. The upper age of juvenile jurisdiction is recorded as 15 for that reason, which is well below the age of 18 required by article 40 of the CRC and General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 29. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 15 15 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Bangladesh BGD Section 83 of the Penal Code, as amended, bars criminal responsibility below 9 - a raising of the inherited colonial figure of 7. A rebuttable doli incapax presumption of the common-law type continues to protect older children who have not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of their conduct. The Children Act 2013 governs the juvenile justice system and defines a child as a person under 18. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 9 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Belarus BLR Penal Code art. 27: general criminal responsibility from 16, and from 14 for a substantial list of named offences which, unusually, includes property offences such as theft and public-order offences such as hooliganism as well as violent crime. The lower age is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code art. 27. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Belgium BEL Belgium operates a youth-protection rather than a youth-punishment model: measures under the youth protection legislation may be imposed from 12, and cases may exceptionally be relinquished to the ordinary criminal courts for older adolescents. Youth protection is a competence of the Communities, so the detail of measures differs between the Flemish, French and German-speaking Communities while the threshold itself does not. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile (citing the Loi relative a la protection de la jeunesse) and the comparative table. Europe 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Benin BEN Ordonnance No. 69-23 PR/MJL of 10 July 1969 on the trial of offences committed by persons under 18, art. 23: no child under 13 may be convicted of a criminal offence, though guardianship or education measures may be taken in respect of younger children. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Bhutan BTN Penal Code 2004, art. 114: no child below 10 may be held criminally liable. Set nationally. The Child Care and Protection Act governs the treatment of children in conflict with the law. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table's citation to Penal Code art. 114. Asia 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Bolivia (Plurinational State of) BOL The Codigo Nina, Nino y Adolescente (Ley 548 of 2014) subjects adolescents from 14 to the special system of criminal responsibility for adolescents, lowering the threshold from the previous position. CRIN's Americas profile records that pre-2014 position - criminal responsibility from 16 under the Penal Code, with socio-educative measures including deprivation of liberty available from 12 under the earlier Childhood and Adolescence Code - so the two sources describe the same system before and after the reform. The figure of 14 should be re-verified against the consolidated text of Ley 548. Americas 14 18 Ratified lexivox.org 20 September 2026 Bosnia and Herzegovina BIH Criminal Code art. 8 bars criminal liability for anyone under 14 at the time of the offence. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a layered criminal-law structure - the State, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska and the Brcko District each have their own criminal codes and juvenile legislation - but all set the same threshold of 14, so the figure is uniform in substance while the governing statute differs by entity. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code art. 8. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Botswana BWA Penal Code section 13 bars criminal responsibility below 8, and section 82(1) of the Children's Act 2009 creates a rebuttable presumption that a child under 14 is incapable of committing an offence unless it can be proved that the child had capacity to know that he or she ought not to do the act. A separate presumption that a person under 12 is incapable of carnal knowledge prevents the prosecution of younger boys for certain sexual offences. The combination of a very low absolute floor with a broad rebuttable presumption is the classic two-age structure criticised in General Comment No. 24 (2019), paras. 26-27. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 8 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Brazil BRA Brazil has a deliberately dual age structure and the figure reported depends on which question is asked. Article 228 of the 1988 Constitution states verbatim: 'Sao penalmente inimputaveis os menores de dezoito anos, sujeitos as normas da legislacao especial' - persons under 18 are not criminally imputable and are subject to special legislation. Article 104 of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent (Lei 8.069/1990, the ECA) repeats this and its sole paragraph fixes the relevant age as the age at the date of the act. So the age of ordinary criminal responsibility is 18, with no exceptions and no transfer mechanism. However, article 2 of the ECA defines a 'crianca' as a person up to 12 incomplete years and an 'adolescente' as a person between 12 and 18; article 105 provides that an infraction committed by a child attracts only the protective measures of article 101, applied by the Conselho Tutelar, while articles 112 and 121-122 make adolescents from 12 liable to socio-educational measures including semi-liberty and internacao, which are deprivations of liberty. Twelve is therefore the age at which the State may lawfully deprive a person of liberty for an offence. CRIN's Americas table records Brazil's formal age as 18 while noting that commentators treat the effective minimum as 12, because that is the point at which penalties indicative of criminal responsibility, most notably deprivation of liberty, can be applied (citing Cipriani, Children's Rights and the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility, 2009). A UNAFEI country paper by a Brazilian federal officer states the same division: children under 12 receive protective measures and 'cannot be imprisoned'. This dataset therefore records the MACR as 12, on the comparative convention that the MACR is the age of exposure to the child justice system's coercive jurisdiction, and records 18 as the age of ordinary criminal responsibility. Both figures were cross-checked against the consolidated statutory text on planalto.gov.br and against CRIN; the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's General Comment No. 24 (2019) recommends a minimum of 14, so Brazil's effective threshold of 12 falls below the current international recommendation. Latin America and the Caribbean (South America) 12 Below 14 18 Not recorded planalto.gov.br 20 September 2026 Brunei Darussalam BRN Two systems operate in parallel. Under the Penal Code no one may be held criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 7, and children aged 7 to under 12 are liable only where they have sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of their conduct - the classic common-law doli incapax structure. Under the Syariah Penal Code Order a child who is not mumaiyiz (unable to differentiate) cannot be held responsible at all, and a child who is mumaiyiz but has not reached puberty (baligh) cannot be sentenced to hadd or qisas punishments; liability for those punishments therefore attaches at puberty rather than at a fixed age. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Bulgaria BGR Criminal Code arts. 31(2) and 32(1)-(2): no criminal responsibility below 14. A capacity test also applies above the threshold - a person aged 14 to 18 is liable only if able to understand the nature and meaning of the act and to control their conduct. Children below 14 who commit 'socially dangerous acts' may be made subject to educational measures under separate legislation, a system repeatedly criticised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child because it can result in deprivation of liberty outside the criminal process. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Burkina Faso BFA Code Penal sections 74(1)-(2): no person may be held criminally responsible if under 13 at the time of the alleged offence, and a child aged 13 to 18 who acted without discernment may not be subject to educational and safety measures. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Burundi BDI Code Penal, Loi No. 1/5 of 22 April 2009, art. 28: no one may be held criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 15. Burundi's threshold exceeds the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019) and is among the highest in the region. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Cabo Verde CPV Criminal Code art. 17: persons under 16 cannot be held criminally responsible. As in other Lusophone systems, a separate educational-tutelary regime applies to younger children and may involve placement, so the high age of criminal liability does not by itself mean that younger children are free from coercive intervention. The upper age of juvenile jurisdiction is recorded as 16 because adult criminal law applies from that age, with a mitigated regime for young adults. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 16 16 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Cambodia KHM Criminal Code art. 39: children of 14 and above may be convicted where the circumstances of the offence or the personality of the minor justify it; children below 14 may be subjected to measures of surveillance, education, protection and assistance rather than punishment. The Juvenile Justice Law of 2016 provides the procedural framework. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Cameroon CMR Code Penal art. 80(1): children under 10 cannot be held criminally responsible, the relevant age being that at which the alleged offence was committed. Cameroon operates parallel common-law and civil-law traditions in its anglophone and francophone regions, but the Penal Code applies nationally and the threshold does not vary. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Canada CAN The minimum age of criminal responsibility is 12 and is set by s. 13 of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46: 'No person shall be convicted of an offence in respect of an act or omission on his part while that person was under the age of twelve years.' The provision is absolute — there is no rebuttable capacity test (no doli incapax presumption) for 12- to 13-year-olds, and no exception for homicide. Independently, s. 2(1) of the YCJA defines a 'young person' as someone who 'is or, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, appears to be twelve years old or older, but less than eighteen years old', so no child under 12 can be dealt with under the youth justice statute either. The Department of Justice Canada confirms in its published YCJA fact sheets that the Act applies to youth aged 12 to 17. The threshold of 12 was reached by statute in 1984: the Young Offenders Act, S.C. 1980-81-82-83, c. 110 raised the minimum age from 7 and removed the former presumption of incapacity for children aged 7 to 13, as the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs recorded in its 1997 review. In 1997 that Committee recommended extending youth court jurisdiction to 10- and 11-year-olds for offences causing death or serious harm, subject to the Attorney General's consent; the recommendation was never enacted. Children under 12 who cause harm are dealt with, if at all, under provincial child protection and mental health legislation. Canada's age of 12 sits below the minimum of 14 recommended by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in General Comment No. 24 (2019); the Committee's 2022 concluding observations on Canada urged general alignment with that General Comment but did not make a Canada-specific recommendation on the age itself. North America 12 Below 14 17 Not recorded laws-lois.justice.gc.ca 20 September 2026 Central African Republic CAF Loi No. 10.001, Code Penal Centrafricain, art. 9: a child under 14 may only be subject to reform measures set out by legislation specific to younger children. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Chad TCD Loi No. 007/PR/99 on the procedure for prosecuting and trying offences committed by minors aged 13 to under 18, art. 22: children under 13 cannot be convicted of any criminal offence. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Chile CHL Chilean legislation describes the age of ordinary criminal responsibility as 18, but Ley 20.084 on the criminal responsibility of adolescents, art. 3, subjects adolescents from 14 to a distinct system of sanctions which includes deprivation of liberty, with different regimes for those aged 14 to 15 and 16 to 17. Fourteen is therefore the age of exposure to the child justice system's coercive jurisdiction and is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 China CHN Article 17 of the Criminal Law establishes three tiers. General criminal responsibility attaches at 16. From 14 a person is responsible for eight named grave offences - intentional homicide, intentional injury causing serious harm or death, rape, robbery, drug trafficking, arson, explosion and poisoning. Amendment (XI) to the Criminal Law, adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in December 2020 and in force from 1 March 2021, added a third tier: children aged 12 to 14 may be held criminally liable for intentional homicide by extremely cruel means, or intentional injury by extremely cruel means causing death or severe disability, but only where prosecution is approved by the Supreme People's Procuratorate. Twelve is therefore the lowest age at which criminal responsibility can attach and is recorded as the MACR. Set nationally for mainland China. The Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions have separate systems: Hong Kong's Juvenile Offenders Ordinance section 3 sets 10, and in Macau the Penal Code exempts persons under 16 from punishment while Law No. 2/2007 sets an effective floor of 12 for educational measures. Asia 12 Below 14 18 Ratified macaubusiness.com 20 September 2026 Colombia COL Codigo de la Infancia y la Adolescencia, arts. 139 and 159: children may be held responsible from 14 under the Sistema de Responsabilidad Penal para Adolescentes, under which a finding does not create a criminal record. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Comoros COM The position is complicated by the overlap of the Penal Code and Sharia. Under the Penal Code no child under 13 may be held criminally responsible; under Sharia, legal majority is reached for boys at physical maturity, generally between 14 and 15. The figure recorded is the Penal Code threshold, which is the lower of the two. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table, which describes the same dual structure. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Congo, Democratic Republic of the COD Loi No. 09/001 of 10 January 2009 on the protection of the child, art. 95: children's courts cannot hold children criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 14. The Committee on the Rights of the Child recorded concern that children under 14 were nonetheless being charged because of failures of implementation (CRC/C/COD/CO/2, 10 February 2009, para. 90), so the gap between the statutory threshold and practice is documented. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Costa Rica CRI Penal Code art. 17 describes 18 as the age of ordinary criminal responsibility, but the Ley de Justicia Penal Juvenil (arts. 1 and 6) exposes children from 12 to penalties including deprivation of liberty. Comparative sources record that offenders of 12 and over may be sentenced to as much as 15 years of incarceration, so the sentencing exposure of children in the juvenile system is substantial notwithstanding the separate procedure. Twelve is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Cote d'Ivoire CIV Loi No. 60-366 of 14 November 1960, Code de procedure penale, art. 116: children under 10 cannot be held criminally responsible. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Croatia HRV Juvenile Courts Act art. 44 and Criminal Code art. 10: no person may be tried for an offence committed while under 14, and any case involving a younger child must be dealt with by the Centre for Social Welfare. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to the same provisions. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Cuba CUB Under the Penal Code only persons over 16 may be held criminally liable, so 16 operates as the age of criminal majority - the point at which adult penalties become available. CRIN records that there is in practice no minimum age at which children may be subject to measures including deprivation of liberty in re-education centres, so the high age of criminal liability does not correspond to a high floor on coercive intervention. The upper age of juvenile jurisdiction is recorded as 16 for the same reason, which is below the age of 18 required by article 40 CRC and General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 29. The figure should be re-verified against the Penal Code adopted in 2022. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 16 16 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Cyprus CYP Raised to 14 by the Criminal Code (Amendment) Law No. 18(I)/2006; the figure is confirmed in the Committee on the Rights of the Child's concluding observations on Cyprus's combined third and fourth reports. Set nationally; the Republic's law does not extend in practice to the northern part of the island. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Czechia CZE No person under 15 at the time of the alleged offence can be held criminally liable; children below that age who commit acts that would otherwise be offences are dealt with under the Juvenile Justice Act by the civil (family) division of the courts, which may impose protective and educational measures. Set nationally. Czechia's threshold meets the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 22. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Denmark DNK Criminal Code section 15: no criminal responsibility for an act committed while under 15. The age has been contested in recent political history - it was lowered to 14 in July 2010 and restored to 15 in March 2012, one of the clearest modern examples of the retrogression the Committee on the Rights of the Child warns against in General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 22. The figure applies in Denmark proper and the Faroe Islands; Greenland has its own criminal code. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Djibouti DJI Penal Code art. 32: children under 13 may be subject only to protective measures, support, supervision and education; children of 13 and above are sentenced under the Penal Code. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Ecuador ECU The Penal Code asserts that criminal responsibility begins at 18, but art. 305 of the Codigo de la Ninez y Adolescencia exposes children from 12 to penalties including deprivation of liberty. Twelve is recorded as the MACR on the convention that it is the age of exposure to the child justice system's coercive jurisdiction. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Egypt EGY The Child Law bars criminal responsibility below 12, but the Child Court retains power from the age of 7 to order that a child who has committed a felony or misdemeanour be reproached, delivered to a parent, guardian or custodian, placed in a specialised hospital or placed in a social care institution. The threshold therefore restricts punishment rather than intervention, and children well below 12 may be institutionalised. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 El Salvador SLV The Penal Code asserts that 18 is the age of criminal responsibility, while art. 2 of the Ley Penal Juvenil exposes children from 12 to penalties including deprivation of liberty. Twelve is recorded as the MACR. The operation of the juvenile system under successive states of exception should be considered alongside the statutory position. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Eritrea ERI Transitional Penal Code art. 52: children under 12 cannot be held criminally responsible for their actions; the same figure appears in Eritrea's combined second and third periodic report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC/C/ERI/3, 23 October 2007, para. 335). Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Estonia EST Criminal Code section 33 bars criminal responsibility below 14. Children from 7 upwards who commit unlawful acts could nonetheless be made subject to sanctions under juvenile sanctions legislation, including committal to a young offenders' institution - a route by which children well below the MACR may be deprived of liberty outside the criminal process. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Eswatini SWZ The minimum age is 7, with a rebuttable presumption that a child aged 7 to 14 is not criminally responsible unless it is shown that the child knew the difference between right and wrong, knowingly intended to do wrong and understood the consequences of the act - the Roman-Dutch doli incapax structure shared with South Africa before its statutory reform. The figure is drawn from the State's initial report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC/C/SWZ/1, 16 February 2006, para. 79) and should be re-verified against the Children's Protection and Welfare Act 2012. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Ethiopia ETH Penal Code art. 52: no person under 9 may be held criminally responsible. Ethiopia is a federation in which the regional states administer justice, but the Criminal Code is federal legislation and the threshold does not vary by region. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 9 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Fiji FJI Crimes Decree 2009, sections 26 and 27: no one may be held criminally responsible for an act or omission committed while under 10, and a child aged 10 to under 14 is responsible only if he or she knew that the conduct was wrong, the burden of proof resting on the prosecution. A separate presumption that a male under 12 is incapable of carnal knowledge prevents the prosecution of younger boys for certain sexual offences. Cross-checked against CRIN's Oceania profile and the comparative table. Oceania 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Finland FIN Penal Code ch. 3 s. 4(1): children under 15 cannot be held criminally liable for any offence, and are dealt with exclusively under the Child Welfare Act. Under ch. 6 s. 12 the courts may waive punishment for an offender under 18 where the act is attributable to thoughtlessness or imprudence. Set nationally; the autonomous Aland Islands apply the same Penal Code. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 France FRA France is conventionally reported as having a minimum age of criminal responsibility of 13, but the position is more exactly a hybrid. Article L11-1 CJPM (in force 30 September 2021, in the wording given by loi no. 2021-218 of 26 February 2021, art. 4) provides that minors are criminally responsible for offences of which they are found guilty 'lorsqu'ils sont capables de discernement'; that 'les mineurs de moins de treize ans sont presumes ne pas etre capables de discernement'; that children of at least 13 are presumed to have discernment; and that a child has discernment where the child 'a compris et voulu son acte et qui est apte a comprendre le sens de la procedure penale dont il fait l'objet'. Both presumptions are rebuttable (presomptions simples), as the Ministry of Justice technical note on the presumption expressly confirms, so a child under 13 can in principle still be prosecuted where the prosecutor rebuts the presumption; art. R423-1 CJPM permits the public action to be set in motion against an under-13 only where the file shows discernment. The hard floor is on punishment, not on liability: art. L11-4 CJPM states that 'aucune peine ne peut etre prononcee a l'encontre d'un mineur de moins de treize ans'. Below 13 only educational measures are available, and the sanction stage must be heard by the juge des enfants rather than the tribunal pour enfants. A further practical floor sits at 10: a child of 10 to 13 may exceptionally be 'retained' by police for up to 12 hours under art. L413-1 CJPM, whereas garde a vue requires 13 (art. L413-6) and pre-trial detention is barred below 13 (art. L334-1). Verification: the statutory text was read on Legifrance and in the consolidated CJPM (version of 20 August 2026); it is independently confirmed by the Ministry of Justice / DPJJ technical note of 17 June 2021 and by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which in CRC/C/FRA/CO/6-7 (2 June 2023), para. 47(a), urged France to 'raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years'. Western Europe 13 Below 14 18 Not recorded legifrance.gouv.fr 19 September 2026 Gabon GAB Code Penal, Loi No. 21/63 of 31 May 1963, art. 57: children may be held criminally responsible from 13. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Gambia GMB Children's Act 2005, section 209: the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 12. The Act consolidated the juvenile justice framework and raised the inherited common-law figure. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Georgia GEO Criminal Code art. 80(1): no person under 14 at the time of the offence can be held criminally responsible. Georgia lowered the age to 12 in 2008 and subsequently restored it to 14, another documented instance of reversal of a retrogressive change. Set nationally; the law is not applied in practice in Abkhazia or South Ossetia. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code s. 33/80. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Germany DEU The minimum age of criminal responsibility is 14, fixed by section 19 of the Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch, StGB): a person who has not completed his or her fourteenth year at the time of the act is incapable of guilt (schuldunfaehig) and no criminal proceedings may be brought. This is an absolute bar, not a rebuttable presumption; children below 14 can only be dealt with through the child and youth welfare system under Book VIII of the Social Code (SGB VIII) and, where necessary, the family courts. Reaching 14 does not by itself create liability. Section 3 JGG adds a second, individualised threshold: a juvenile is criminally responsible only if, at the time of the act, he or she was sufficiently mature morally and intellectually to appreciate the wrongfulness of the act and to act on that appreciation. The burden is on the prosecution and the court must make positive findings; if maturity cannot be established the juvenile must be acquitted of criminal responsibility. Age brackets: Kind (child) under 14 - no criminal responsibility; Jugendlicher (juvenile) 14 to under 18 - juvenile criminal law applies compulsorily; Heranwachsender (young adult) 18 to under 21 - tried in juvenile courts, with juvenile substantive law applied where the maturity or Jugendverfehlung test in section 105 JGG is met; adult from 21. Cross-checked against two independent sources: (1) section 19 StGB as published by the Federal Ministry of Justice at gesetze-im-internet.de, and (2) the European Commission / EACEA Youth Wiki country chapter for Germany, which states the section 3 JGG maturity test and the section 105 JGG young-adult rule in the same terms; a third source, the CYCJ international MACR profile for Germany, agrees. The upper age of juvenile jurisdiction recorded here as 21 refers to the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts and the reach of juvenile sanctions, not to the definition of Jugendlicher, which ends at 18. Europe (Western Europe; Council of Europe and European Union member State) 14 21 Not recorded gesetze-im-internet.de 19 September 2026 Ghana GHA Criminal Code section 26: a child under 12 is incapable of committing a criminal offence. The Juvenile Justice Act 2003 governs procedure and defines a juvenile as a person under 18. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Greece GRC Criminal Code arts. 126-127 distinguish sharply between measures and penalties. Children below 15 are not criminally liable and may be subject only to educational or therapeutic measures; only from 15 may a person be sentenced to penalties including deprivation of liberty. CRIN's older profile records the lower bracket for educational measures as beginning at 8; Greek law has since been reformed and the lower bracket is generally reported as 12, but the age at which criminal liability itself attaches - the figure recorded here - is 15. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Guinea GIN Code Penal art. 64: children under 10 cannot be prosecuted and children under 13 may be subject only to protective, educative and supervision measures. Under art. 345 of the Code de l'Enfant Guineen (Loi L/2008/011/AN of 19 August 2008) a child aged 13 to 16 may be sentenced to imprisonment only where judged to have acted with discernment. Ten is the lowest age at which prosecution is possible and is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Guinea-Bissau GNB Codigo Penal Guineense, Decreto Lei No. 4/93, art. 10: the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 16. CRIN records that it was unable to establish whether children below that age may be subject to measures amounting to deprivation of liberty, so the protective alternative for younger children is undocumented. The upper age is recorded as 16 because adult criminal law applies from that age. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 16 16 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Hungary HUN Criminal Code section 16 sets the general age at 14 but lowers it to 12 for homicide, voluntary manslaughter, battery, robbery and plundering, and for bodily harm leading to death or life-threatening injury, provided the child had the capacity to understand the nature and consequences of the act. The lowest age at which criminal responsibility can attach - 12 - is recorded as the MACR; the general threshold of 14 is the one that applies to all other offences. This is precisely the offence-based exception that General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 25, urges States to abolish. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code s. 16. Europe 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Iceland ISL Penal Code art. 14: no person may be punished for an offence committed while under 15. Children below that age are dealt with by the child protection authorities. Set nationally. Iceland's threshold meets the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019). Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 India IND The minimum age of criminal responsibility is 7. Section 20 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (reproducing section 82 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 verbatim) gives absolute immunity: nothing is an offence which is done by a child under seven years of age. Section 21 BNS (formerly section 83 IPC) creates a rebuttable doli incapax presumption for children aged 7 to under 12, who are immune unless the prosecution proves that the child had attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of the conduct on that occasion. Because that presumption must be rebutted case by case, many commentators describe the effective floor as 12 rather than 7, but 7 remains the legal minimum. India retained the 1860 figure unchanged when it recodified its criminal law in 2023, despite the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child having urged States in General Comment No. 24 (2019) to set the minimum at no less than 14. The minimum age is entirely separate from the upper age of juvenile jurisdiction (18), which is fixed by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and was upheld in Salil Bali (2013) and Subramanian Swamy v. Raju (2014). Asia 7 Below 14 18 Not recorded indiacode.nic.in 19 September 2026 Indonesia IDN Law No. 11 of 2012 on the Juvenile Criminal Justice System (Sistem Peradilan Pidana Anak) raised the minimum age to 12; children below that age may be returned to their parents or placed in the care of social welfare institutions but may not be prosecuted. CRIN's older Asia profile records the pre-2012 position of 8 and expressly notes that a bill raising the age was then pending; the 2012 Law is the source of the current figure. Set nationally, although Aceh applies additional Islamic criminal (jinayat) legislation. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile (for the pre-reform baseline) and the comparative table's citation to the 2012 Law. Asia 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Iran (Islamic Republic of) IRN Iran does not set a single age. Criminal maturity is tied to shar'i puberty as defined in Civil Code art. 1210, note 1, which fixes it at 9 lunar years for girls and 15 lunar years for boys - approximately 8 years 9 months and 14 years 7 months in solar years. The age of maturity had been 18 before amendments in 1982 lowered it. The lower of the two figures is recorded here; the differentiation by sex is itself discriminatory under article 2 of the CRC. Under the Islamic Penal Code of 2013 a court may, for hudud and qisas offences, decline to impose the adult penalty where it doubts the maturity or mental development of the offender, but the discretion does not amount to a fixed higher threshold. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 9 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Iraq IRQ Juvenile Welfare Law No. 76 of 1983, arts. 47(1) and 108: criminal responsibility attaches from 9. The Law distinguishes between a 'juvenile' (sabi) aged 9 to under 15 and an 'adolescent' aged 15 to under 18, with different dispositions for each. The Kurdistan Region applies the federal law with regional amendments. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 9 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Ireland IRL Section 52 of the Children Act 2001 (as substituted by the Criminal Justice Act 2006) sets the general age at 12, with a narrow exception: a child aged 10 or 11 may be charged with murder, manslaughter, rape, rape under section 4 of the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990, or aggravated sexual assault. The lowest age at which criminal responsibility can attach is therefore 10, and the figure of 12 recorded here is the general threshold. Where a child under 14 is charged, no further proceedings may be taken without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Set nationally. The offence-based exception is of the kind General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 25, recommends abolishing. Europe 12 Below 14 18 Ratified irishstatutebook.ie 20 September 2026 Israel ISR Section 34F of the Penal Law bars criminal responsibility below 12. A separate regime applies under Israeli military law in the occupied West Bank: Military Order 1651, section 191, provides that no person under 12 may be arrested or prosecuted in a military court. The coexistence of a civilian and a military juvenile jurisdiction, applying different procedural protections to children of the same age, has been the subject of sustained criticism by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Italy ITA Criminal Code arts. 97 and 98: children under 14 cannot be held criminally liable, and persons aged 14 to 17 inclusive are liable only where judged capable of forming the necessary criminal intent in relation to the specific offence - an individualised capacity assessment that operates above, not below, the statutory floor. Set nationally, with a specialised juvenile court system and separate juvenile institutions. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to the same articles. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Japan JPN The minimum age of criminal responsibility is 14, fixed not by the Juvenile Act but by the Penal Code: Article 41 provides that "An act of a person less than 14 years of age is not punishable" (official Ministry of Justice translation). A child under 14 whose conduct would otherwise violate criminal law is a shokuho shonen (law-breaking child) under Juvenile Act Article 3(1)(ii). Such a child can never be prosecuted and reaches a family court only if a prefectural governor or the director of a child guidance centre refers the case (Juvenile Act Article 3(2)); the primary route is the Child Welfare Act (Act No. 164 of 1947). Since the 2007 amendment a family court may, exceptionally and "only when it is found as particularly necessary", commit a child under 14 at the time of the ruling to a juvenile training school (Article 24(1) proviso), and the Juvenile Training School Act (Act No. 58 of 2014) Article 4 sets the floor for class 1 and class 3 schools at "almost 12 years of age or older" (omune 12-sai ijo). The MACR has not been changed since 1948. A persistent source of confusion is the 2000 amendment, which lowered from 16 to 14 the age at which a family court may refer a case to a prosecutor for adult criminal disposition (Article 20). That is the "minimum age for criminal punishment", not the MACR; the Committee on the Rights of the Child addressed exactly that provision in 2019 (CRC/C/JPN/CO/4-5, paras. 44(a), 45(b)), urging Japan to study offending trends since 2000 with a view to shifting it back to 16. The Committee did not recommend raising the Penal Code Article 41 threshold in those concluding observations. Cross-checked against three independent sources: Penal Code Article 41 (primary text, Japanese Law Translation Database, Ministry of Justice); the Supreme Court of Japan's official "Questions and Answers on Juvenile Cases"; and the Ministry of Justice White Paper on Crime 2025, which defines a juvenile offender as a person "aged 14 to 19 at the time of the crime". East Asia 14 20 Not recorded japaneselawtranslation.go.jp 20 September 2026 Jordan JOR The Juveniles Law No. 32 of 2014 raised the minimum age from 7 to 12 and reorganised the juvenile justice system around diversion and restorative measures. CRIN's Asia profile records the pre-2014 figure of 7 under the Juveniles Act, Law No. 24 of 1968, and expressly notes the draft law then before parliament, so the two sources agree on the direction and sequence of the reform rather than on a single figure. The current figure should be re-verified against the consolidated text of the 2014 Law before publication. Set nationally. Asia 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Kazakhstan KAZ Criminal Code art. 15: general criminal liability from 16 and from 14 for offences specifically listed, mostly violent but including vandalism and deliberate damage to transport vehicles or roads. A further statutory safeguard exempts a juvenile who, because of developmental delay, was unaware of the nature or social danger of an act of lesser or medium gravity. The lower figure is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Kenya KEN Penal Code section 14(1)-(2): no one under 8 may be held criminally responsible, and a child aged 8 to under 12 is responsible only where he or she had capacity to know that the act ought not to be done. A separate presumption that a male under 12 is incapable of carnal knowledge prevents the prosecution of younger boys for certain sexual offences. The Children Act governs the juvenile justice system; the threshold in the Penal Code has been the subject of repeated reform proposals. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 8 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Korea, Democratic People's Republic of PRK The State has reported to the Committee on the Rights of the Child that Criminal Code art. 11 and Criminal Procedure Law art. 53 bar criminal responsibility below 14 (CRC/C/PRK/4, 15 January 2008, paras. 14 and 232). Independent verification of the operation of these provisions is not available, and the figure rests on State reporting rather than on observed practice. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Korea, Republic of KOR Article 9 of the Criminal Act provides that no one may be punished for an offence committed while under 14. Below that age the Juvenile Act operates a separate protective jurisdiction: children aged 10 to 13 (chokbeop sonyeon) may be referred to the juvenile department of the court for protective dispositions including placement in juvenile protection institutions or training schools, so deprivation of liberty is possible from 10 without criminal liability. Comparative tables that report 12 for the Republic of Korea are describing the protective jurisdiction rather than criminal responsibility. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Kuwait KWT Juveniles Act No. 3 of 1983, art. 6: persons under 7 cannot be held criminally responsible, and children aged 7 to 15 who commit unlawful acts may be subject to measures under the Juveniles Act including detention in an institution. The threshold is among the lowest recorded anywhere and falls far below the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 22. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Kyrgyzstan KGZ Criminal Code art. 18(1)-(2): general criminal liability from 16 and from 14 for offences specifically listed in the Code. The lower figure is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Lao People's Democratic Republic LAO Penal Law arts. 7 and 17: no person may be held criminally responsible for an act carried out while under 15. Set nationally. The threshold exceeds the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019). Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Latvia LVA Criminal Code section 11: no person may be held criminally liable for an offence allegedly committed while under 14. Set nationally; there is no offence-based exception and no rebuttable capacity presumption. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Lebanon LBN Law No. 422 of 2002 on the protection of juveniles in conflict with the law or at risk, art. 3: children under 7 cannot be held criminally responsible. The 2002 Law introduced a graduated system of measures for older children and a specialised juvenile judiciary, but did not raise the floor. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Lesotho LSO Children's Protection and Welfare Act 2011, section 79(1)-(4): no child under 10 may be prosecuted, and a child aged 10 to 14 may be prosecuted only where an inquiry magistrate is satisfied that the child has the capacity to appreciate the difference between right and wrong and the ability to act in accordance with that appreciation, the onus being on the prosecution to prove capacity beyond reasonable doubt. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Liberia LBR Liberian law uses two inconsistent thresholds. Under the Juvenile Court Procedural Code a juvenile delinquent is a person who has attained 7 but is under 18, and a child under 7 cannot be a delinquent. Under Penal Code section 4.1, however, a person is not considered criminally responsible for conduct while under 16. The figure of 7 is recorded because it is the age from which a child may be brought before the juvenile court and made subject to its dispositions. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Libya LBY Penal Code arts. 80-81: children may be held criminally responsible for all offences from 14, and only where capable of discernment. A child over 7 but under 14 cannot be held responsible in the same way but may be subject to preventive measures including detention in a juvenile education and guidance centre. The figure predates the fragmentation of authority since 2011 and the law applied in practice should be re-verified. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Liechtenstein LIE Jugendgerichtsgesetz (Juvenile Court Act) 1998, section 2(1)-(2): persons under 14 at the time of the offence cannot be held criminally liable. The juvenile court regime may extend to young adults, which is why some comparative tables show an upper figure of 21. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Lithuania LTU Criminal Code art. 13(1)-(2): general criminal responsibility from 16, and from 14 for offences specifically listed in art. 13(2), which include murder, serious impairment to health, rape, sexual harassment, theft, robbery, extortion, destruction of or damage to property, firearms and narcotics offences and damage to vehicles or roads. The lower age is recorded as the MACR. The breadth of the list means the 'exception' covers much ordinary offending. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Madagascar MDG Ordonnance No. 62-038 of 19 September 1962 on the protection of childhood, art. 35: a child under 13 cannot be held criminally responsible; under arts. 44 and 46 children aged 13 to 16 may be held responsible but the court retains a discretion. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Malawi MWI Penal Code: a child under 7 is not criminally responsible for any act or omission, and a child over 7 but under 12 is responsible only where it is proved that at the time he or she had capacity to know that the act ought not to be done. A separate presumption prevents the prosecution of males under 12 for certain sexual offences. The Child Care, Protection and Justice Act 2010 governs the child justice system; the Penal Code threshold should be re-verified against subsequent amendments. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Malaysia MYS Malaysia has a dual system and therefore more than one threshold. Under the Penal Code, section 82, criminal responsibility attaches at 10 (raised from 7), with a doli incapax presumption under section 83 for children aged 10 to under 12 who have not attained sufficient maturity of understanding. Under the Syariah Criminal Offences (Federal Territories) Act 1997 and its State equivalents, Muslim children become responsible from the onset of puberty rather than at a fixed age; because Syariah criminal offences are a State matter under the Federal Constitution, the position varies between the States and the Federal Territories. The Child Act 2001 governs the Court for Children and defines a child as a person under 18. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Maldives MDV Section 53 of the Penal Code 2014 frames the question as an excuse of immaturity rather than a fixed floor: a person under 15 is conclusively presumed to be excused of any offence, and a person aged 15 to 18 is presumed excused unless the prosecution rebuts the presumption of immaturity. Two significant carve-outs qualify that structure - the excuse does not apply to offences punishable under Sharia law or to violent felonies, for which the penalty may be postponed until the child reaches 18, and under a 2006 regulation children may be held responsible from puberty for a list of offences including apostasy, fornication, false accusation of fornication, consumption of alcohol and unlawful killing. The Child Rights Protection Act 2019 has since been reported to raise the general minimum, and the figure should be re-verified against that Act. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Mali MLI Ordonnance No. 02-062/P-RM of 5 June 2002, art. 98: children under 13 are conclusively presumed not to have capacity to commit a criminal offence, and a child aged 13 to 18 may be held responsible only where he or she acted with discernment. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Mauritania MRT Ordonnance No. 2005-015 on the penal protection of the child, art. 2: no one may be held criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 7. The threshold falls far below the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019). Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Mauritius MUS Mauritius has historically had no express floor. Criminal Code Act sections 44 and 45 allow children under 14 to be subject to criminal measures where they have discernment, without setting any lower age limit, and children found to lack discernment may still be deprived of liberty without criminal conviction. The figure of 14 recorded here is the discernment threshold above which responsibility follows the ordinary rules; it is not an absolute statutory floor, and the Children's Act 2020 should be consulted for the current position. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile (which states that there is no clear or overt minimum age) and the comparative table, which records the same absence of a floor alongside the figure of 14. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Mexico MEX Article 18 of the Constitution requires the federation and the states to establish a system of justice for persons aged 12 to 18, and provides that children under 12 may be subject only to rehabilitation and social assistance. Mexico is a federal state and the precise formulation of the adolescent justice system historically varied between the 32 federal entities; the Ley Nacional del Sistema Integral de Justicia Penal para Adolescentes of 2016 harmonised the framework nationally. Internment is available only from 14 - measures for those aged 12 and 13 are non-custodial - so the constitutional floor of 12 and the custodial floor of 14 must be distinguished. Twelve is recorded as the MACR because it is the age of exposure to the adolescent justice system. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Moldova MDA Criminal Code art. 21(1)-(2): general criminal liability from 16, and from 14 for a list of named offences. The lower figure is recorded as the MACR. The law is not applied in practice in the Transnistrian region. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code art. 21. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Mongolia MNG Criminal Code art. 21(1)-(2): general criminal responsibility from 16 and from 14 for specifically named offences. The lower figure is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Montenegro MNE Criminal Code art. 80: no person may be subjected to criminal sanctions for an offence committed while under 14. Set nationally; no offence-based exception. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Morocco MAR Penal Code art. 12 and Criminal Procedure Code arts. 138 and 458: a child under 12 at the time of an alleged offence cannot be held criminally liable. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Mozambique MOZ CRIN records that there is no clear minimum age: children under 16 fall under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court, which is empowered to impose penalties amounting to deprivation of liberty, with the Penal Code (art. 42) exempting them from ordinary criminal liability. Sixteen is therefore the age of criminal majority rather than a floor on coercive intervention, and the upper age of juvenile jurisdiction is recorded as 16 for the same reason. A new Penal Code has since been enacted and the position should be re-verified against it. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 16 16 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Namibia NAM Under the inherited Roman-Dutch common law children under 7 cannot be held criminally responsible, and a child over 7 but under 14 may be convicted only where the State proves that the child knowingly intended to do wrong and understood the consequences of the wrongful act (Namibia's first periodic report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, CRC/C/3/Add.12, January 1993, para. 40). Namibia has legislated extensively on child care and protection since, and the Child Justice Act should be consulted for the current threshold. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Nepal NPL The Children's Act provides that no child may be punished for a criminal act committed while under 10, and that children aged 10 to 13 inclusive may only be given a warning for offences carrying a maximum penalty of a fine. The Act relating to Children, 2018 has since restructured the juvenile justice system around juvenile benches and diversion; the threshold should be re-verified against that Act. Set nationally, with no provincial variation in criminal law. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Netherlands NLD Section 486 of the Code of Criminal Procedure fixes the minimum age at 12; children below that age cannot be prosecuted and are dealt with under child protection law. The Dutch system is unusual at the upper end rather than the lower: from 16 a young person may in serious cases be tried under adult criminal law, and conversely the adolescentenstrafrecht permits juvenile sanctions to be applied to young adults, so comparative tables sometimes report upper figures of 21 or 23. The figure recorded here for the upper age is the ordinary boundary of 18. Set nationally; Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten are separate jurisdictions within the Kingdom with their own criminal codes. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 New Zealand NZL Crimes Act 1961, sections 21(1) and 22: no person may be convicted of an offence in relation to an act or omission committed while under 10, and a child aged 10 to under 14 may be convicted only where he or she knew that the act or omission was wrong or contrary to law - a statutory doli incapax presumption. The Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 (formerly the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act) then restricts prosecution by age and offence: children aged 10 or 11 may generally be prosecuted only for murder or manslaughter, and children aged 12 or 13 only for offences carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment or of at least 10 or 14 years, depending on the category. The effective floor for ordinary offending is therefore 14, while the absolute floor is 10, and the figure of 10 is recorded as the MACR. Set nationally. Oceania 10 Below 14 18 Ratified legislation.govt.nz 20 September 2026 Nicaragua NIC Under national legislation criminal responsibility formally begins at 18, but art. 95 of the Codigo de la Ninez y la Adolescencia exposes children from 13 to penalties under the juvenile justice system. Thirteen is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Niger NER Penal Code art. 45: children may be held criminally responsible from 13, and may be subject only to protection, assistance or re-education measures where they lack discernment. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Nigeria NGA Nigeria is the clearest case in this dataset of an age that varies by sub-national jurisdiction and by legal tradition, and a single figure necessarily flattens it. The federal Child's Rights Act 2003 does not specify a minimum age; it defines a child as a person under 18 and requires that a child in conflict with the law be dealt with under the Act, but it takes effect in a State only when that State adopts it, and several northern States have not. The Children and Young Persons Law sets the minimum age at 7 and provides special measures for persons under 16, with those over 16 tried as adults. In the southern States the Criminal Code Act 1916 sets the minimum at 7; in the northern States the Penal Code 1960 also specifies 7 and classifies juvenile offenders as those under 17. Under the Sharia penal codes adopted in twelve northern States, children become eligible for hadd and qisas punishments from puberty rather than at a fixed age. The figure of 7 is therefore the lowest and most widely applicable statutory threshold, not a uniform national rule, and the upper age of juvenile jurisdiction varies between 16, 17 and 18 depending on the State and the statute applied. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 7 Below 14 17 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 North Macedonia MKD Criminal Code art. 71: criminal sanctions may not be applied to persons younger than 14 at the time of the offence. Some comparative tables report a higher figure for North Macedonia; that figure reflects the age of full criminal responsibility and sentencing rather than the age at which liability first attaches, and this dataset records the lower, liability-based figure consistent with CRIN's statutory citation. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Norway NOR No person may be punished for an offence committed while under 15. CRIN's profile cites section 46 of the General Civil Penal Code of 1902; the same threshold is carried forward into the Penal Code of 2005, which replaced it. Children below 15 are dealt with by the child welfare service. Set nationally. Norway's threshold exceeds the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 22. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Oman OMN Penal Code art. 104: no one may be subject to criminal penalties for an offence committed while under 9, and where the age of a suspect is not established it is to be evaluated by the judge - a provision in tension with General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 24, which requires that the benefit of the doubt be given to the child where age cannot be established. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 9 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Pakistan PAK Penal Code sections 82 and 83: no one may be held criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 7, and children aged 7 to under 12 are liable only where they have attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of their conduct on that occasion - the inherited doli incapax structure. The position is complicated by parallel regimes: under the Hudood Ordinances liability for hadd punishments attaches at puberty rather than at a fixed age, with the Supreme Court having defined puberty by physiological criteria, and the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018 defines a child as a person under 18 without altering the Penal Code floor. Criminal law is largely federal, but the provinces have legislated separately on juvenile justice administration; Sindh raised its minimum age to 10 by provincial amendment, so the figure is not uniform across the federation. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Palau PLW Palau National Code, title 17, section 106: no one may be held criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 10, and children aged 10 to 14 may be held responsible only for murder or rape. The narrow offence-based exception above the floor is of the kind General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 25, recommends abolishing. Cross-checked against CRIN's Oceania profile and the comparative table. Oceania 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Panama PAN Ley No. 40 on the special regime of criminal responsibility for adolescents, arts. 7 and 8 (as amended by Ley No. 6 of 2010): children may be subject to penalties for criminal offences from 12. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Papua New Guinea PNG Criminal Code sections 30(1)-(2): no one may be held criminally responsible for an act or omission committed while under 7, and a child over 10 but under 14 is responsible only where he or she had capacity to know that the act ought not to be done. The Juvenile Justice Act 2014 restructured the juvenile justice system and the threshold should be re-verified against it; this dataset records the Criminal Code figure on which both consulted sources agree. Cross-checked against CRIN's Oceania profile and the comparative table. Oceania 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Paraguay PRY Codigo de la Ninez y la Adolescencia art. 194: children may be held criminally responsible from 14, and an adolescent is responsible only if of sufficient maturity to understand the illegality of his or her actions - a capacity test operating above the statutory floor. Younger children may be the subject of protective measures. Comparative sources record a maximum of eight years' imprisonment for adolescent offenders. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Peru PER Penal Code art. 20.2 sets the age of ordinary criminal responsibility at 18; a person under 18 who infringes the criminal law commits an 'infraction' and may be subjected to socio-educative measures which include deprivation of liberty. Under art. 242 of the Codigo de los Ninos y Adolescentes a person under 14 may be subjected only to protective measures such as tutoring, participation in an educative programme or placement in a foster family or home. Fourteen is therefore the age of exposure to custodial measures and is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Philippines PHL Republic Act No. 9344 (Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006), as amended by Republic Act No. 10630, section 6: no one may be held criminally responsible for an act carried out while under 15, and a child aged 15 to under 18 is responsible only where they acted with discernment. Children below the threshold are subject to an intervention programme and, where a serious offence is alleged, may be placed in a Bahay Pag-asa youth care facility - a form of deprivation of liberty outside the criminal process. Bills to lower the age to 12 have been repeatedly introduced, and one passed the House of Representatives in January 2019, but the threshold in the Act as amended remains 15. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table's citation to Republic Act No. 9344. Asia 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Poland POL Penal Code art. 10 sets general criminal liability at 17 and permits trial from 15 for a closed list of grave offences; 15 is therefore the lowest age recorded here at which criminal liability can attach. Separately, and confusingly for comparative purposes, Polish juvenile legislation permits proceedings in respect of 'demoralisation' and delinquency from 13, which are formally non-criminal but can result in placement in a youth educational centre. Comparative tables that report 13 for Poland are describing that juvenile jurisdiction rather than criminal liability. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile (Penal Code art. 10) and the comparative table. Europe 15 17 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Portugal PRT Criminal Code art. 19: persons under 16 cannot be held criminally liable. Between 12 and 16 a child may instead be subject to the Lei Tutelar Educativa (Guardianship and Education Law) of 1999, which permits placement in closed educational centres - a deprivation of liberty imposed outside the criminal law. Portugal therefore has one of Europe's highest ages of criminal liability alongside a relatively low age of exposure to custodial educational measures, and comparative tables that report 12 are describing the latter. Set nationally, including the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 16 16 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Qatar QAT Law No. 11 of 2004 (the Penal Code), art. 53: children under 7 cannot be held criminally responsible. The Juveniles Law provides for measures in respect of older children. The threshold falls far below the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019). Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Romania ROU Criminal Code art. 113(1)-(3): no one under 14 can be held criminally liable; a child aged 14 to 16 is liable only where discernment is proved; from 16 liability follows the ordinary rules but within the framework of sanctions applicable to minors. The rebuttable discernment requirement for 14- to 16-year-olds is the operative safeguard, and the statutory floor of 14 is recorded here as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table, whose note describes the same discernment test. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Russian Federation RUS Criminal Code art. 20(1)-(2): general criminal liability from 16, and from 14 for the offences specifically listed in art. 20(2). The lower figure is recorded as the MACR. Set federally; the constituent subjects of the Federation have no power to vary it. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code art. 20. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Rwanda RWA Penal Code art. 77: children may be subjected to criminal penalties from 14. Set nationally. The threshold meets the minimum recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 22. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Sao Tome and Principe STP Penal Code art. 19: children under 16 cannot be held criminally responsible. As in other Lusophone systems, the high age of criminal liability coexists with an educational-tutelary regime for younger children, and the upper age of juvenile jurisdiction is recorded as 16 because adult criminal law applies from that age. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 16 16 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Saudi Arabia SAU The figure is reported with low confidence and should be treated as provisional. CRIN records that the minimum age has reportedly been raised from 7 to 12 but that reports are inconsistent, and that the raised age would not apply to girls or in qisas cases; comparative tables record 12. The Law of Criminal Procedure and the Juvenile Homes' Regulation define a juvenile as a person under 18 and provide for juvenile courts, but the law does not require every child offender to be tried in the juvenile system or oblige judges to decide by reference to the age at the time of the offence, and judicial practice has been documented as turning on assessments of physical development. This dataset records 12 while flagging that the figure is not securely verifiable from primary sources. Asia 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Senegal SEN Penal Code art. 52: there are no provisions permitting criminal penalties for children under 13. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Serbia SRB Law on Juvenile Criminal Offenders and Criminal Protection of Juveniles art. 2, read with Criminal Code art. 4(3): no person may be subjected to criminal sanctions for an offence committed while under 14. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Seychelles SYC Penal Code section 15: a person under 7 cannot be held criminally responsible, and a child over 7 but under 12 is responsible only where he or she had the capacity to know that the act ought not to be done. The State has reported to the Committee on the Rights of the Child that the minimum age is 12, but CRIN records that the Penal Code provision remains in force, so younger children may in principle still be subjected to criminal penalties - a discrepancy between reported and operative law that should be resolved against the current consolidated Penal Code. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Sierra Leone SLE Child Rights Act, section 70: no child may be held criminally responsible for actions while under 14. The threshold meets the minimum recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019) and is among the higher figures in West Africa. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Singapore SGP The Criminal Law Reform Act 2019 raised the minimum age in section 82 of the Penal Code from 7 to 10 with effect from 1 January 2020, implementing a recommendation of the Penal Code Review Committee. Section 83 retains a doli incapax presumption for children aged 10 to under 12 who have not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of their conduct. CRIN's Asia profile records the pre-2020 figure of 7, so the two sources agree on the structure and disagree only because CRIN predates the reform. Offenders aged 16 to 21 are classed as young adults and may be considered for reformative training. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table's account of the 2019 reform. Asia 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Slovakia SVK Criminal Code section 22(1)-(2): no person under 14 at the time of the act may be held criminally liable, and, unusually, a separate and higher floor of 15 applies to the offence of sexual abuse. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Slovenia SVN Penal Code art. 71: children under 14 cannot be sentenced to criminal penalties. Scholarship on the Slovenian system records that children below that age may nonetheless be committed to juvenile institutions equivalent to those used for older children in conflict with the law, so the practical effect of the threshold is narrower than it appears. Juvenile sanctions may extend to young adults, which is why some tables show an upper figure of 21. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Solomon Islands SLB Penal Code section 14(1)-(2): no person under 8 may be held criminally responsible, and a child over 8 but under 12 only where he or she had capacity to know that the act ought not to be done. CRIN records that the Juvenile Offenders Act nonetheless permits criminal justice measures, including deprivation of liberty, without any lower age limit, so the Penal Code threshold does not operate as an absolute floor on custody. Cross-checked against CRIN's Oceania profile and the comparative table. Oceania 8 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Somalia SOM The age differs between the territories governed by different authorities and a single figure cannot describe the whole country. In south and central Somalia and in Puntland the Somali Penal Code 1962 sets the minimum age at 14 and provides reduced punishments for those aged 14 to 17, while also authorising the sending of children under 14 to reformatories; the Juvenile Courts and Reformatories Law 1970 may never have been brought fully into force. In Somaliland the Juvenile Justice Law 2007 sets the age at 15 and seeks to harmonise secular, Sharia and customary law, but CRIN records that it has not been fully implemented and that criminal matters involving children were until recently often handled by regional security committees. The figure of 14 is recorded as the lower of the two. Somalia ratified the CRC on 1 October 2015, subject to reservations to articles 14, 20 and 21 and to any provision contrary to the general principles of Islamic Sharia, to which several States parties have objected. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 South Africa ZAF The minimum age of criminal capacity is 12 years. Section 7(1) of the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 (as substituted by section 4 of the Child Justice Amendment Act 28 of 2019, with effect from 19 August 2022) provides that a child who commits an offence while under the age of 12 years 'does not have criminal capacity and cannot be prosecuted for that offence, but must be dealt with in terms of section 9'. Before 19 August 2022 the statutory minimum was 10 years; before the Act came into force in 2010 the common law set an irrebuttable presumption of incapacity below 7. Section 7(2) retains a rebuttable presumption that a child who is 12 or older but under 14 lacks criminal capacity; section 11(1) requires the State to prove beyond reasonable doubt that such a child could appreciate the difference between right and wrong and act in accordance with that appreciation. Section 9 requires police to hand a child under 12 to a parent, appropriate person, guardian or a suitable child and youth care centre and to notify a probation officer; such a child may not be arrested. Section 8 (as substituted in 2019) obliges the Cabinet member responsible for justice to report to Parliament, not later than five years after commencement of section 5 of the 2019 Amendment Act (i.e. by roughly 19 August 2027), on whether the minimum age should be raised further. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (General Comment No. 24, 2019) encourages a minimum age of at least 14, and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child has criticised both the former age of 10 and the retention of the doli incapax presumption, so South Africa's age of 12 remains below the currently recommended international benchmark. Africa (Southern Africa) 12 Below 14 18 Not recorded justice.gov.za 19 September 2026 South Sudan SSD Penal Code section 30: a child under 12 cannot be held criminally responsible. Section 31 inverts the usual presumption for the next bracket: a child aged 12 to 14 is presumed capable of criminal liability unless it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that he or she lacked the capacity to form the necessary intention, or, for negligence offences, to behave as a reasonable adult would have. South Sudan acceded to the CRC on 23 January 2015. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Spain ESP Organic Law 5/2000 of 12 January on the criminal responsibility of minors, arts. 1(1) and 3: no child may be held criminally responsible for an act committed while under 14; younger children who commit what would otherwise be offences are referred to the child protection authorities. Set by organic law at State level, so it is uniform across the autonomous communities even though the enforcement of measures is devolved to them. Cross-checked against the consolidated text published in the Boletin Oficial del Estado and CRIN's Europe profile. Europe 14 18 Ratified boe.es 20 September 2026 Sri Lanka LKA Penal Code sections 75 and 76, as amended in May 2018, raised the minimum age from 8 to 12: no person may be held criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 12, and a child aged 12 to under 14 is liable only where they have attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of their conduct. The rebuttable presumption therefore operates between 12 and 14. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile (which records the 2018 amendment) and the comparative table. Asia 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Sweden SWE Criminal Code ch. 1 s. 6: no person may be subjected to a criminal sanction for an offence committed while under 15; children below that age are dealt with by the social services. The sentencing reduction formerly available to young adults aged 18 to 20 was abolished with effect from 2022. A reform lowering the threshold to 14 for serious offences has been reported in comparative sources as taking effect in September 2026; this research could not verify that change against an official Swedish source, so the verified figure of 15 is recorded and the reported reform is flagged here rather than adopted. The figure should be re-verified against the consolidated Brottsbalken before publication. Europe 15 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Switzerland CHE Article 3(1) of the federal Loi regissant la condition penale des mineurs (Jugendstrafgesetz, 2003) sets the age at 10 - among the lowest in western Europe. The federal statute governs, so the cantons cannot vary the threshold, although they administer the measures. Sentencing is tightly capped by age: a person who was under 15 at the time of the offence cannot be sentenced to more than one year of detention. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly urged Switzerland to raise the age to at least 14. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table. Europe 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Syrian Arab Republic SYR Juvenile Act 1974, art. 10, as amended by Legislative Decree No. 52 of 2003: a child under 10 at the time of an alleged offence cannot be held criminally responsible. The figure predates the armed conflict and the changes of authority since 2011, and the law in force in different parts of the territory should be re-verified. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Tajikistan TJK Criminal Code art. 23(1)-(2): general criminal responsibility from 16 and from 14 for named offences, usually involving violence. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed concern that children under 14 are frequently subjected to arrest, pre-trial detention and deprivation of liberty in closed institutions notwithstanding the statutory threshold (CRC/C/TJK/CO/2, 5 February 2010, para. 72). Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Tanzania, United Republic of TZA Penal Code section 15: no person under 7 may be held criminally responsible, and a child aged 7 to 12 is responsible only where at the time of the alleged offence he or she had capacity to know that the act ought not to be done. Zanzibar has its own criminal legislation within the Union, so the position is not perfectly uniform. The Law of the Child Act 2009 governs the juvenile justice system on the mainland. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Timor-Leste TLS Penal Code art. 20 exempts children under 16 from criminal liability; for persons aged 16 to under 21 criminal penalties are provided for in specific legislation. Sixteen is among the highest thresholds recorded anywhere, although the absence of a fully developed statutory framework for children below that age means that the protective alternative is thinly specified. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table's citation to Penal Code art. 20. Asia 16 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Togo TGO Under the Code de Procedure Penale (art. 455) children under 13 could be brought before the Juvenile Court, but the Children's Code 2007 (art. 302) provides that children under 14 are criminally irresponsible, effectively raising the threshold to 14. Where the two instruments conflict the later and more protective provision governs. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Tunisia TUN Child Protection Code art. 68: persons under 13 cannot be held criminally responsible. Set nationally, with a specialised juvenile judiciary and a child protection delegate system for younger children. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Turkiye TUR Criminal Code art. 31(1)-(2): no child under 12 on the day of the alleged offence can be held criminally liable, and a child aged 12 to 14 inclusive who did not have the ability to perceive the legal meaning and consequences of the offence, or to control their actions, may not be held criminally responsible - a statutory rebuttable capacity test operating between 12 and 15. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the consolidated Criminal Code no. 5237 published by the Turkish official gazette service. Europe 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Turkmenistan TKM Penal Code art. 21: criminal liability for all offences from 16 and for certain named offences from 14. The lower figure is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Uganda UGA Children's Act section 88: the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 12. The Act also establishes Family and Children Courts and a framework of diversion. Set nationally. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Ukraine UKR Criminal Code art. 22(1)-(2): general criminal liability from 16, and from 14 for a list of specifically named offences which are largely violent but include certain property offences. The lower figure is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Europe profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code art. 22. Europe 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 United Arab Emirates ARE Under federal criminal law the minimum age is 7 (Juvenile Delinquency and Vagrants Act art. 7; Penal Code art. 62). In parallel, liability for Islamic punishments attaches at the onset of puberty, and because the Emirates differ as to which school of Islamic jurisprudence is treated as the principal source of Shari'a rules, the age at which that liability attaches varies between the seven Emirates - one of the clearest examples in this dataset of a federal figure that does not describe the position uniformly on the ground. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. The figure should be re-verified against the current federal juvenile legislation. Asia 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 United Kingdom (England & Wales) GBR The minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10, fixed by section 50 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which conclusively presumes that no child under 10 can be guilty of any offence. The threshold was raised from 7 to 8 by the 1933 Act and from 8 to 10 by section 16 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963; it has not moved since. It is uniform across England and Wales (youth justice is not devolved to Wales, although children's services, education and health are). Scotland's MACR is 12 (Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019); Northern Ireland's remains 10. Until 1998 the common law rebuttable presumption of doli incapax required the prosecution to prove that a child aged 10 to under 14 knew that the conduct was seriously wrong and not merely naughty; the House of Lords confirmed and restated the presumption in C (a minor) v DPP [1996] AC 1, and Parliament abolished it by section 34 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 with effect from 30 September 1998. In R v JTB [2009] UKHL 20 the House of Lords held that section 34 abolished not only the presumption but also any separate defence of doli incapax. Because section 34 is not retrospective, the old presumption still applies to offences alleged to have been committed before 30 September 1998. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended raising the MACR to at least 14 in each of its concluding observations on the UK in 1995, 2002, 2008, 2016 and 2023 (CRC/C/GBR/CO/6-7, para 54(a)). Successive private members' bills (e.g. the Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill [HL]) and amendments to government bills proposing 12 or 14 have not been enacted. Europe 10 Below 14 18 Not recorded cps.gov.uk 19 September 2026 United States of America USA There is no national minimum age of criminal responsibility in the United States, and any single figure is a summary rather than a rule. Each state sets its own floor for juvenile court jurisdiction and the federal system sets none expressly. The National Youth Justice Network's most recent count records 28 states with a statutory minimum age, ranging from 7 to 13, leaving 22 states and the District of Columbia with no minimum age at all; in those jurisdictions the only limit is a case-by-case competency or common-law infancy inquiry. Age 10 is the most common statutory threshold and is recorded here for that reason. The lowest statutory floor is 7 (Florida, Fla. Stat. s.985.031, subject to an exception for forcible felonies); the highest are 13 (Maryland and New Hampshire). Several states qualify their floor with offence-based carve-outs - Arkansas for capital murder and first-degree murder, Nevada and North Carolina for serious offences by children as young as 8, Vermont for murder - so the nominal age overstates the protection. Movement has run in both directions: several states have raised their floor in recent years, while Maryland, having raised its floor to 13 in 2022, restored juvenile court jurisdiction over children as young as 10 for certain serious offences in 2024. No United States jurisdiction meets the minimum of 14 recommended in General Comment No. 24 (2019) for all offences. The United States signed the CRC on 16 February 1995 but has not ratified it, and is the only United Nations member state that is not a party. Americas 10 Below 14 18 Not recorded nyjn.org 20 September 2026 Uruguay URY Under the definition adopted in Uruguayan legislation no one under 18 may be held criminally responsible, but the Codigo de la Ninez y la Adolescencia exposes children from 13 to socio-educative measures including institutionalisation. Thirteen is recorded as the MACR. A 2014 referendum proposal to lower the age of criminal majority to 16 was rejected. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Uzbekistan UZB Criminal Code art. 17 operates three thresholds: responsibility for all offences from 16, for a list of specifically named offences from 14, and for intentional killing from 13. Thirteen is therefore the lowest age at which criminal responsibility can attach and is recorded as the MACR. The homicide carve-out is the offence-based exception that General Comment No. 24 (2019), para. 25, recommends abolishing. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table's citation to Criminal Code art. 17. Asia 13 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Vanuatu VUT Penal Code sections 14(3) and 17(1): no person may be held criminally responsible for an offence committed while under 10, and a child over 10 but under 14 is presumed incapable of committing an offence unless able to distinguish between right and wrong and shown to have done so in respect of the offence charged. A further presumption treats a male under 12 as incapable of sexual intercourse. Cross-checked against CRIN's Oceania profile and the comparative table. Oceania 10 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) VEN Ley Organica para la Proteccion de Ninos, Ninas y Adolescentes, art. 528 and following: adolescents may be subject to penalties including deprivation of liberty from 12, with a differentiated and more restrictive regime for those aged 12 and 13 than for those aged 14 to 17. Comparative tables that report 14 for Venezuela are describing the age from which the more severe custodial sanction becomes available. Twelve is recorded as the MACR. Cross-checked against CRIN's Americas profile and the comparative table. Americas 12 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Viet Nam VNM Criminal Code arts. 12 and 68: a child of 14 or older may be held criminally responsible for very serious crimes intentionally committed and for particularly serious crimes, and a person of 16 or older for any offence. Children aged 14 to 18 convicted of an offence are classified as juvenile offenders. The lower figure is recorded as the MACR. The Law on Juvenile Justice adopted in 2024 restructures procedure and diversion for this group and should be consulted for the current framework. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Yemen YEM Republican Decree, Law No. 12 of 1994 concerning crimes and penalties, section 31: no one may be held criminally responsible for an act committed while under 7. The figure predates the armed conflict and the fragmentation of authority since 2014, and the law applied in practice in different parts of the country should be re-verified. Cross-checked against CRIN's Asia profile and the comparative table. Asia 7 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026 Zambia ZMB Penal Code section 14: no person under 8 is criminally responsible, and a child over 8 but under 12 is not responsible unless it is proved that at the time he or she had the capacity to do the act or make the omission. A further presumption prevents the prosecution of males under 12 for certain sexual offences. Zambia has since enacted a consolidated Children's Code and the threshold should be re-verified against it. Cross-checked against CRIN's Africa profile and the comparative table. Africa 8 Below 14 18 Ratified archive.crin.org 20 September 2026