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The question of superior orders and the responsibility of Commanding Officers in the Protocol additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts (Protocol I) of 8 June 1977

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Maurice Aubert
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Extract

Much has been written on the question of orders from a superior officer. The problem is too complex for any simple reply. The national legislation to which soldiers are subject renders any member of the armed forces who refuses to carry out an order liable to presocution for a penal offence. In serious cases and especially in time of war military penal codes generally provide that the judge may sentence the offender to death. However the plea of superior orders does not necessarily relieve a military subordinate of penal responsibility for a violation of international humanitarian law committed in carrying out those orders.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 28 , Issue 263 , April 1988 , pp. 105 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1988

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References

1 See, inter alia, the monographs by Ekkehart, Mueller-Rappard, L'ordre supérieur militaire et la responsabilité pénale du subordonné, thesis, Pedone, Paris, 1965 Google Scholar, and Greene, , L.C., Superior orders in national and international law, Sijthoff, Leyden, 1976.Google Scholar

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13 Article III 130.

14 Article IV 147.

15 CDDH/I/SR.51, in Official Records (O.R.) of the Diplomatic Conference on Humanitarian Law, vol. IX, p. 127, para. 20.Google Scholar

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24 Protocol I, Article 11.

25 Protocol I, Article 85, para. 3.

26 Protocol I, Article 85, para. 4.

27 Protocol I, Article 86, para. 1.

28 Protocol I, Article 86, para. 2.

29 Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, ICRC, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Geneva, 1986, p. 1010 Google Scholar, section 3537.

30 Protocol I, Article 86, para. 2.

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33 Protocol I, Article 43, para. 1.

34 Protocol I, Article 87, para. 1.

35 Protocol I, Article 87, para. 2.

36 In 1847 an internal conflict, the War of the Sonderbund, took place in Switzerland. Guillaume-Henri Dufour was appointed General and Commander-in-Chief of the federal troops. In his “Recommendations on the conduct to be observed towards the inhabitants and troops”, which he ordered the general staffs to follow, he gave orders that civilian persons and property should be respected, that enemy wounded should be looked after as carefully as his own wounded, and that no harm should be done to prisoners. In a P.S. to this document in his own hand, General Dufour (later the first President of the ICRC) added: “High commanders will take care to inculcate these principles in their subordinates, who will in turn inculcate them in their junior officers, so that from the latter they shall be passed to other ranks and serve as a rule for the entire federal army. That army must do everything to prove to the world that it is not a crowd of barbarians. Bern, 4 November 1847, The Commander-in-Chief.” Reverdin, Olivier: “Le Général Guillaume-Henry Dufour, précurseur d'Henry Dunant” in Studies and essays on international humanitarian law and the principles of the Red Cross in honour of Jean Pictet, ed. Swinarski, Christophe, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Geneva-The Hague, 1985, p. 957.Google Scholar

37 Protocol I, Article 87, para. 3.

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41 Swiss Military Penal Code (MFC), Article 61, para. 1.

42 MPC., Article 61, para. 2.

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44 Protocol I, Article 86, para. 2.

45 Protocol I, Article 87, paras. 1 and 2.

46 Protocol I, Article 87.

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48 See MPC, Article 45.

49 According to MPC, Article 109.

50 Message du Conseil fédéral, op. cit., p. 1034.

51 Protocol I, Article 88.

52 See Aubert, , Maurice, , “La répression des crimes de guerre dans le cadre des Conventions de Genève et du Protocole additionnel I et l'entraide judiciaire accordée par la Suisse”, in “Schweizerischen Juristen-Zeitung, No. 23, 1983, p. 368 ff.Google Scholar

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54 Protocol I, Article 57, para. 1.

55 O.R. CDDH, op. cit., vol. VI, p. 212 Google Scholar (CDDH/SR.42, para. 43).

56 The term “group” is equivalent in the Swiss army to “battalion” and is used inter alia, in the artillery, including anti-aircraft artillery.

57 Message du Conseil fédéral, op. cit., p. 1063. (Text appears as an Annex to these notes.)

58 The instrument of ratification of the Additional Protocols by the Republic of Austria of 13 August 1982.

59 Protocol I, Article 86.

60 Reservation (attached) with regard to Article 58, Protocol I.

61 Federal order of 9 October 1981 in Feuille Fédérale, 1981, p. 1063 Google Scholar. Recueil systématique du droit fédéral, O.518.521., p. 63.

62 Aubert, , Maurice, , “Réserves…”, op. cit., p. 144.Google Scholar

63 Protocol I, Article 58.

64 Protocol I, Articles 86 and 87.