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Command Responsibility Assigns Criminal Responsibility To Higher-Ranking Members of Military For Crimes

Command responsibility holds higher-ranking military members criminally responsible for war crimes committed by subordinates. It requires a superior-subordinate relationship where the superior knew or should have known of crimes, but failed to prevent or punish them. The three conditions for command responsibility under customary international law are: 1) a superior-subordinate relationship between the commander and offenders; 2) the superior knew or should have known of planned or committed crimes; and 3) the superior failed to prevent or punish the crimes. Command responsibility has been applied in various international tribunals and is incorporated into U.S. federal law.

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60 views1 page

Command Responsibility Assigns Criminal Responsibility To Higher-Ranking Members of Military For Crimes

Command responsibility holds higher-ranking military members criminally responsible for war crimes committed by subordinates. It requires a superior-subordinate relationship where the superior knew or should have known of crimes, but failed to prevent or punish them. The three conditions for command responsibility under customary international law are: 1) a superior-subordinate relationship between the commander and offenders; 2) the superior knew or should have known of planned or committed crimes; and 3) the superior failed to prevent or punish the crimes. Command responsibility has been applied in various international tribunals and is incorporated into U.S. federal law.

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Command responsibility assigns criminal responsibility to higher-ranking members of military for crimes

of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by their subordinates. It has been
adjudicated upon through the form of superior responsibility in a number of cases before the
International Criminal Tribunal based on overlapping yet distinct legal classifications as well as the
International Criminal Court, through the classification of command responsibility.

As a mode of liability, command responsibility assigns criminal responsibility to high-ranking


members of military as well as militia for the crimes committed by their subordinates. At the most basic
conceptual level, the individual criminal responsibility of such high-ranking individuals is attributed
through their inactivity and requires both that they hold a superior-subordinate relationship with the
direct perpetrators and that they knew or should have known that the crimes were being or had been
committed.

Customary international law provides that a superior or commander may be held criminally
responsible for the acts of others if the following three conditions are met (Elements):

1. the existence of a superior-subordinate relationship between the commander or superior and


the alleged principal offenders;
2. the superior knew or had reason to know that the subordinate was about to commit such acts
or had done so;
3. and the superior failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such acts or
to punish the perpetrators thereof.

Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina


standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability
for war crimes.

The United States of America confirmed and incorporated the mentioned 1899 and 1907 Hague
Conventions on "command responsibility" into United States federal law through the precedent set by
the United States Supreme Court(called the "Yamashita standard") in the case of Japanese
General Tomoyuki Yamashita. He was prosecuted in 1945 for atrocities committed by troops under his
command in the Philippines, in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Yamashita was charged with
"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." [

Basis: Rome Statute Article 28

ICTR Statute Article 6(3)

ICTY Statute Article 7(3)

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