#command responsibility

We are recently witnessing a spectacle of history. Since last year, the news feeds are clogged with the images coming out of The Hague. Rodrigo Duterte, the former President of the Philippines, sitting in the dock of the International Criminal Court (ICC). For human rights advocates, for the families of the victims of the drug war, and for the international community, this is the victory lap.…

From the Civil War to Vietnam to Minneapolis, How the United States Normalized Killing Without Consequence By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — February 9, 2026 Overview Across U.S. history, large-scale death caused by state action has rarely produced legal accountability for those who ordered, authorized, enabled, or concealed it. From the…

What is the War Crimes Act of 1996 (US)?

Introduction The War Crimes Act of 1996 is a law that defines a war crime to include a “grave breach of the Geneva Conventions”, specifically noting that “grave breach” should have the meaning defined in any convention (related to the laws of war) to which the US is a party. The definition of “grave breach” in some of the Geneva Conventions have text that extend additional protections, but all…

What is Command Responsibility?

Introduction Command responsibility (superior responsibility, the Yamashita standard, and the Medina standard) is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes. The legal doctrine of command responsibility stipulates that a superior officer (military commander or civilian leader) can be held legally responsible for war crimes committed by subordinates. The legal doctrine of…

Command responsibility, also called superior responsibility, the Yamashitas standard, or the Medina standard, is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes.[1][2][3][4][5] The legal doctrine of Command Responsibility was codified in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and is partly based upon the American Lieber Code, a war manual for the Union forces, authorized by US President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, two years into the course of the American Civil War. The legal doctrine of command responsibility was first applied by the German Supreme Court, in the Leipzig War Crimes Trials (1921), which included the trial of Imperial German Army officer Emil Müller for the war crimes that he committed during the First World War (1914–1918).[6][7][8]

The Yamashita standard derived from the incorporation to the U.S. Code of the legal doctrine of command responsibility, as codified in the two Hague Conventions. That legal precedent, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowed the US prosecution of the war-crimes case against 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. A US military tribunal charged Yamashita 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."[9][10]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia | The Latest: Last Khmer Rouge leaders get life sentences

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia  — The Latest on the tribunal judging Khmer Rouge responsibility (all times local):

11:40 a.m. An international tribunal that found two former Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of genocide has sentenced them to life in prison.

The elderly Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan are the last surviving senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge and are already serving life sentences for the regime’s…