Command responsibility

Variously called command responsibility or superior responsibility, it is a principle of international law that senior officers, who did not literally dirty their hands in atrocity, are as responsible for the ordinary soldier who executes the atrocity. There have been considerable arguments as to whether a senior officer who was unaware of atrocities, or actively took measures to prevent them, should bear criminal responsibility for the acts. Those arguing for the latter position claim that criminalizing even ignorance or active measures discourages commanders to try to prevent atrocities, but the other side claims that it will "for the encouragement of others" to know there can be criminality.

Second World War

One of the best-known cases, which has become called the Yamashita Doctrine, refers to the 1945 prosecution and eventual execution of Imperial Japanese Army GEN Tomoyuki Yamashita. It is widely accepted that Yamashita ordered his troops not to participate in atrocities, but had poor communications with subordinate units. In at least one case, a senior subordinate commander, RADM Sanji Iwabuchi, "declined to obey" Yamashita's declaration of a Manila as an Open City, refused to join Yamashita's main force in rural areas north of Manila, and massacred approximately 100,000 civilians.<ref name=Barber1998>Laurie Barber (September 1998), "The Yamashita War Crimes Trial Revisited", WaiMilHist, Electronic Journal of Military History within the History Department at the University of Waikato, Hamilton NZ</ref