Civilian superior responsibility in the kordić case

Netherlands International Law Review

Volumn 50, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 59-82

  Nybondas, Maria ^a,b  

^a UTRECHT UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

^b TMC Asser Institute   (Netherlands)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77955253166     PISSN: 0165070X     EISSN: 17416191     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0165070X03000597     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. See the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Annex to the Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 808 (1993), UN Doc. S/25704, 3 May 1993.
2. See SC Res. 808 (1993), UN Doc. S/RES/808 (1993), 22 February 1993 and SC Res. 827 (1993), UN Doc. S/RES/827 (1993), 25 May 1993.
3. See Report of the Secretary-General, supra n. 2.
4. See Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780, UN Doc. S/1994/674, Annex, 27 May 1994.
5. See Prosecutor v. Dario Kordić and Mario čerkez, Judgement, Case No. IT-95-14/2-T, 26 February 2001.
6. See Prosecutor v. Dario Kordić and Mario-010D;erkez, Amended Indictm ent (Kordić Indictment), Case No. IT-95-14/2, 30 September 1998, para. 10.
7. See Prosecutor v. Tihomir Blaškić, Judgement, Case No. IT-95-14-T, 3 March 2000 and Prosecutor v. Zejnil Delalić et al., Judgement (Ćelebići Trial Judgement), Case No. IT-96-21-T, 16 November 1998.
8. See supra n. 8, at para. 402.
9. See Ćelebići Trial Judgement, supra n. 14, at para. 4.
10. See Prosecutor v. Zlatko Aleksovski, Judgement, Case No. IT-95-14/1-T, 25 June 1999, para. 103.
11. See Prosecutor v. Milorad Krnojelac, Judgement, IT-97-25-T, 15 March 2002, where the Trial Chamber upheld the view expressed in earlier cases, according to which civilians can be held responsible under the doctrine of superior responsibility.
12. See supra n. 8, at para. 839.
13. See Prosecutor v. Zejnil Delalić et. al., Appeal Judgement (čelebići Appeal Judgement), Case No. IT-96-21-A, 20 February 2001.
14. See supra n. 8, at para. 405.
15. See č;elebići Trial Judgement, supra n. 14, at para. 647.
16. See supra n. 8, at para. 408.
17. See čelebići Trial Judgement, supra n. 14, at para. 354.
18. See Y. Sandoz, et al., eds., Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Geneva, International Committee of the Red Cross 1987) para. 3555.
19. See supra n. 8, at para. 838.
20. See supra n. 13, at para. 20.
21. See Art. 86(2) of Additional Protocol I, supra n. 32.
22. See supra n. 8, at para. 430.
23. See Art. 87(3) of Additional Protocol I, supra n. 32.
24. See supra n. 8, at para. 442.
25. See Art. 6 of the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind, UN Doc. A/51/10 (1996), UN GAOR, 51st Sess., Supp. No. 10, pp. 38-39.
26. See supra n. 8, at para. 443.
27. See Art. 7(1) of the ICTY Statute, supra n. 2.
28. See Prosecutor v. Tihomir Blaškić, Judgement, Case No. IT-95-14-T, 3 March 2000.
29. See supra n. 8, at para. 366.
30. See Report of the Secretary-General, supra n. 2, at para. 54.
31. See Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić, Appeal Judgement, Case No. IT-94-1-A, 15 July 1999.
32. See supra n. 8, at para. 373.
33. See Art. 6 of the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace an d Security of Mankind, supra n. 44, at p. 35.
34. See supra n. 8, at para. 367.
35. See the Blaškić judgement, supra n. 47, at para. 337.
36. See Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić, Judgement, Case No. IT-94-1-T, 7 May 1997, at para. 686.
37. See the Blaškić judgement, supra n. 47, at para. 337.
38. That responsibility as included in Art. 7(1) of the ICTY Statute is the basis for individual criminal responsibility, was im plied in the conclusion by the Rome Conference establishing the ICC Statute, which stated that superior responsibility is not a separate but an additional form of responsibility. See M. Arsanjani, 'The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court', 93 AJIL (1999) p. 22 at p. 37.
39. See Prosecutor v. Enver Hadzihasanović et al., Indictment, Case No. IT-01-47, 5 July 2001.
40. See supra n. 8, at para. 829.
41. See T. Meron, Henry's Wars and Shakespeare's Laws: Perspectives on the Law of War in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1993) p. 149.
42. The same view could also be derived from the judgement in the important Yamashita case, which has been held to imply that a superior's failure to act in severity corresponded to the offence itself and, therefore, the punishment should be the same as that of the actual perpetrator, see E. Greppi, 'The Evolution of Individual Criminal Responsibility under International Law', 81 International Review of the Red Cross (1999) p. 550. See also W.H. Parks, 'Command Responsibility for War Crimes', 62 Military Law Review (1973) p. 104.
43. See Annex Four to the Prosecutor's Closing Brief in the case of the Prosecutor v. Kordić and čerkez, IT-95-14/2, 13 December 2000, p. 23.
44. See Foreword by Dr. Röling, in B.V.A. Röling and C.F. Rüter, eds., The Tokyo Judgement, The International Criminal Tribunal for the Far East, 29 April-12 November 1948, Vol I (Amsterdam, APA-University Press Amsterdam 1977) p. XVI. However, it has to be noted that Judge Röling was also critical of the way in which responsibility based on omission was determined by the Tokyo Tribunal, as was expressed in his Opinion on the Tokyo judgement, see Opinion of the Member from the Netherlands, idem, Vol. II, at pp. 1062-1064.
45. See Parks, loc. cit. n. 69, p. 69.
46. See J. Paust, et al., eds., International Criminal Law, 2nd edn. (Durham, Carolina Academic Press 2000) p. 47.
47. See Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties, Report Presented to the Preliminary Peace Conference, March 29, 1919, reproduced in 14 AJIL (1920) p. 117.
48. See supra n. 8, at para. 838.
49. See the Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut, the 'Kahan Report', 7 February 1983, reproduced in 22 ILM (1983) pp. 499-500.
50. See W.J. Fenrick, 'Article 28, Responsibility of Commanders and Other Superiors', in O. Triffterer, ed., Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: Observers' Notes, Article by Article, (Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 1999) p. 521.
51. See supra n. 8, at para. 839 (emphasis added).
52. See Fenrick, op. cit. n. 77, at pp. 517-518.
53. See supra n. 8, at para. 838.
54. See Convention on the Law of the Sea, 30 April 1982, reproduced in 21 ILM (1982) p. 1261.
55. For a short history and significance of the negotiation process of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, see I. Brownlie, ed., Basic Documents in International Law, 4th edn. (Oxford, Oxford University Press 1995) pp. 129-130.
56. For a critical view on the arguments of the Akayesu Trial Chamber regarding responsibility under Art. 6(3), see Commentary by W. Schabas, in A. Klip and G. Sluiter, eds., Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals, Vol. II (Antwerp, Intersentia 2001) p. 553. See also Prosecutor v. Omar Serushago, Decision relating to a plea of guilty, Case No. ICTR-98-39-T, 14 December 1998, paras. 28-29.
57. See Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu, Judgement, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, 2 September 1998, paras. 125-129.
58. See the Report of the Secretary-General on the establishment of a Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the enclosed Statute of the Special Court, UN Doc. S/2000/915, 4 October 2000, Enclosure.
59. See the Report of the Secretary-General on the establishment of a Special Court for Sierra Leone, supra n. 85, at paras. 29-31.
60. See supra n. 8, at para. 840.
61. See, e.g., the ECHR, Tyrer v. the United Kingdom, 25 April 1978, Series A no. 26, p. 15, para. 31.