Execute! Yes Sir, Commander!

Mark J. Osiel, Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline & the Law of War, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999.

August 6, 2002

ASOLDIER carries out an illegal order, considers it legal, with fatal consequences. Who is responsible? The soldier obeying the command of his superior, or the superior giving the illegal order, or both of them? Must the law forgive the soldiers misconduct? What good is the law if the soldier is forgiven?

Such questions are often asked today, when peacekeeping forces are increasingly deployed throughout the world. Actually, those questions pert

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