Suchergebnisse

In any future war the military subordinate commanded to use nuclear weapons risks being punished for mutiny if he disobeys, & hanged by the victor as a war criminal if he obeys. The plea of superior orders would not be a defence if the order could be considered as manifestly criminal under internat'l law. But no conventional or customary law dealing specifically with nuclear weapons exists, & the 'principles of humanity,' in view of the disregard for moral consideration in 20th cent warfare, are no longer ascertainable. Since the 'dictates of the public conscience' have seemingly surrendered to military expediency, the individual will be forced back on his own personal sense of right. He will have to weigh the possibility of the adversary's world triumph against the danger of race suicide. He will have to decide whether any single individual should make this fateful choice for all of humanity. IPSA.

When Francis Gary Powers was asked by the presiding judge of the Soviet military tribunal trying him for espionage whether he had not considered the possibility that his U-2 flight might provoke armed conflict, the captured pilot answered, "The people who sent me should think of these things. My job was to carry out orders. I do not think it was my responsibility to make such decisions." This article deals with a similar problem, a predicament which to this day, fortunately, has remained hypothetical, but which may become distressingly real at some time in the future. It concerns the unenviable position of the military subordinate commanded to use nuclear weapons, who may be punished today if he disobeys and prosecuted tomorrow if he obeys. The discussion initially evolves around three issues in international law: (1) the validity of the plea of superior orders as a defense in war crimes trials; (2) the question of the legality of using nuclear weapons; and (3) the present status and future of the law of war. That these problem areas are intimately related should become clear as we proceed.The disregard for humanitarian and moral considerations which has increasingly characterized the conduct of war in the twentieth century, and, more recently, the development of nuclear weapons—the tools of mass extermination par excellence—have led many students of international law to conclude that the laws of war are dead. Grotius' doctrine of the temperamenta belli, requiring belligerents to conduct hostilities with regard for the principles of humanity and chivalry, as well as the many conventions drawn up prior to World War I in order to regulate the use of violence, are said to have become largely obsolete.