Police and Security, Vol. 18 No. 3, 2009.
Review article
Elements of the Doctrine of Command Responsibility
Željka Burić
; Ured za ljudska prava Vlade Republike Hrvatske, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
Command responsibility regulates the personal responsibility of individuals. This institution only čame into the centre of interest with the foundation ofadhoc courts for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and especially the foundation of the permanent International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The rules of international criminal law, the statutes of these adhoc courts, and the Statute of Rome in an effort to align with the acquis communautaire, demanded changes to national legislation, and thereby had a significant influence on the law of the Republic of Croatia. Customary humanitarian international law contains rules on the responsibility of superiors for the offences of their subordinates. Commanders and other superiors are criminally liable for war crimes committed by their subordinates if they knew or had reason to know that their subordinates would commit or were committing these crimes, and they did not take ali the necessary and reasonable measures within the limits of their power to prevent their commission or, if those crimes were committed to punish those responsible. This rule as a standard in customary international law was established by the case law of states, but also most international permanent or ad hoc courts. It was applied in the First Additional Pro-tocol to the Geneva Convention in Article 86, paragraph 2, and in Article 28 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, in Article 7, paragraph 3 of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and in Article 6, paragraph 3 of the Statute of the International Tribunal for Rwanda. It was interpreted for the first time in case law after the Second World War and the interpretation included the following important components: civilian command authority, the relationship of subordinates and superiors, commanders/superiors who knew or had reason to know, investigation of crimes and reporting them and the use of necessary and reasonable measures.
Keywords
command responsibility; commander; superior; subordinate; effective control
Hrčak ID:
79358
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2009.
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