Global InformationCommand responsibility information
In the practice of international law, command responsibility (also superior responsibility) is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes, whereby a commanding officer (military) and a superior officer (civil) is legally responsible for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by his subordinates; thus, a commanding officer always is accountable for the acts of commission and the acts of omission of his soldiers.[1][2][3][4]
In the late 19th century, the legal doctrine of command responsibility was codified in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which are partly based upon the Lieber Code (General Orders No. 100, 24 April 1863), military law that legally allowed the Union Army to fight in the regular and the irregular modes of warfare deployed by the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861–1865). As international law, the legal doctrine and the term command responsibility were applied and used in the Leipzig war crimes trials (1921) that included the trial of Captain Emil Müller for prisoner abuse committed by his soldiers during the First World War (1914–1918).[5][6][7]
In the 20th century, in the late 1940s, the Yamashita standard derived from the incorporation to the U.S. Code of the developments of the legal doctrine of command responsibility presented in the Nuremberg trials (1945–1946). Abiding by that legal precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the U.S. prosecution of the war crimes case against Imperial Japanese Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita for the atrocities committed by his soldiers in the Philippine Islands, in the Pacific Theatre (1941–1945) of the Second World War. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East charged, tried, and judged Gen. Yamashita for "unlawfully disregarding, and failing to discharge, his duty as a commander to control the acts of members of his command, by permitting them to commit war crimes".[8][9]
In the 20th century, in the early 1970s, the Medina standard expanded the U.S. Code to include the criminal liability of American military officers for the war crimes committed by their subordinates, as are the war-criminal military officers of an enemy power. The Medina standard was established in the court martial of U.S. Army Captain Ernest Medina in 1971 for not exercising his command authority as company commander, by not acting to halt the My Lai Massacre (16 March 1968) committed by his soldiers during the Vietnam War (1955–1975).[8][10][11][12]
- ^ Guilty Associations: Joint Criminal Enterprise, Command Responsibility, and the Development of International Criminal Law Archived 10 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine by Allison Marston Danner and Jenny S. Martinez, 15 September 2004.
- ^ Command, superior and ministerial responsibility by Robin Rowland, CBC News Online, 6 May 2004
- ^ Superior responsibility (Prosecutor v. Popović et al, ICTY TC II, 10 June 2010 (case no. IT-05-88-T). p. 511)
- ^ van der Wilt, Harmen (2013-09-30). "Command Responsibility". Oxford Bibliographies Online: 9780199796953–0088. doi:10.1093/obo/9780199796953-0088.
- ^ Command Responsibility: The Contemporary Law at the Wayback Machine (archive index) by Iavor Rangelov and Jovan Nicic, Humanitarian Law Center, 23 February 2004.
- ^ The Contemporary Law of Superior Responsibility Archived 2006-02-23 at the Wayback Machine by Ilias Bantekas, American Journal of International Law, 3 July 1999
- ^ Joint Criminal Enterprise and Command Responsibility Archived 2007-06-10 at the Wayback Machine by Profr. Kai Ambos, University of Göttingen, 25 January 2007.
- ^ a b Stuart E Hendin, "Command Responsibility and Superior Orders in the Twentieth Century – A Century of Evolution", Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law
- ^ The Yamashita standard
- Robin Rowland, "Sugamo and the River Kwai", a research paper presented to Encounters at Sugamo Prison, Tokyo 1945–52, The American Occupation of Japan and Memories of the Asia-Pacific War, Princeton University, 9 May 2003.
- Anne E. Mahle, The Yamashita Standard, PBS
- ^ "Excerpt of the Prosecution Brief on the Law of Principals in United States v. Captain Ernest L. Medina". Archived from the original on 2007-08-04. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
- ^ The Medina standard
- Barry McCaffrey, "Human Rights and the Commander", autumn 1995
- Maj. Tony Raimondo, "The My Lai Massacre: A Case Study", Human Rights Program, School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia
- ^ "Events of 1971 - Year in Review - UPI.com". Archived from the original on 2009-02-12. Retrieved 2011-01-11.