Command responsibility

Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes committed during wartime.

The term may also be used more broadly to refer to the duty to supervise subordinates, and liability for the failure to do so, both in government, military law, and with regard to corporations and trusts.

The doctrine of "command responsibility" was established by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and was applied for the first time by the German Supreme Court at the Leipzig War Crimes Trials after World War I, in the 1921 trial of Emil Müller.

The "Yamashita standard" is based upon the precedent set by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita. He was prosecuted in 1945, in a still controversial trial, for atrocities committed by troops under his command in the Philippines during the Pacific Theater of World War II. Yamashita was charged 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."

The "Medina standard" is based upon the 1971 prosecution of U.S. Army Captain Ernest Medina in connection with the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. It holds that a commanding officer, being aware of a human rights violation or a war crime, will be held criminally liable when he does not take action. However, Medina was acquitted of all charges.

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