The Responsibility Of Commanders In International Criminal Law

The implementation of war crimes or crimes against humanity often has special historical backgrounds,such as armed conflicts and wars.Such crimes are usually committed by military organizations or groups.As commanders of those organizations or groups,by given their control and influence over their subordinates,if the commanders have failed to effectively prevent subordinates from committing crimes or punishing them,they can show from the side that they have acquiesced in committing crimes to their subordinates,even they did not commit the crime directly.At the same time,such crimes involve a large number of people,and it is difficult for the International Tribunal to convict all persons involved.On the one hand,it is too difficult to collect evidence,and on the other hand,the judicial costs are too heavy.Therefore,it is necessary to target commanders who fail to take effective measures to prevent or punish crimes.In the first part,the origin of the commander's responsibility is sorted out.From the historical development,it can be seen that at the beginning of the creation of command responsibility,the applicable subject is limited to "military commander".With the development of international criminal law,when the commander directly orders his subordinates to engage in criminal activities,he is regarded as an accomplice.Following the publication of the Rome statute of the international criminal court,article 28 separates the responsibility of commanders from the individual criminal responsibility clause and distinguishes it between military commanders and other superiors.The second part analyzes the international criminal court Bemba case to extract the focus of the dispute and find out the reasons for the differences.Although article 28 of the Rome statute was a considerable improvement over the previous rules,there was still room for improvement in what had not been explained.Nevertheless,the ICC remains deeply divided on the application of the responsibility of commanders and other superiors.The third part of this paper mainly discusses the difficult problems in the application of the responsibility of commanders and other superiors,and puts forward my own views.The last part,combined with the relevant provisions and doctrines of the superior orders,discusses the similarities between the commander's responsibilities and the superior orders and the common problems they face.In addition,the commander's liability is compared with the conceptually confusing indirect principal and vicarious liability.Although China is not a party to the Rome Statute,the development trend of international criminal law is global.The proposed thesis hopes that the analysis of the commander's responsibility can contribute to the development of criminal law in China.