War crime Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Legality of civilian casualties == Under the [[law of armed conflict]] (LOAC), the death of non-combatants is not necessarily a violation; there are many things to take into account. Civilians ''cannot'' be made the object of an attack, but the death/injury of civilians while conducting an attack on a military objective are governed under principles such as of proportionality and [[military necessity]] and can be permissible. Military necessity "permits the destruction of life of ... persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable by the armed conflicts of the war; ... it does not permit the killing of innocent inhabitants for purposes of revenge or the satisfaction of a lust to kill. The destruction of property to be lawful must be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council law no. 10, Nuremberg, October 1946-April, 1949.|last=Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945β1955: U.S. Zone)|date=1997|publisher=William S. Hein|isbn=1575882159|oclc=37718851}}</ref> For example, conducting an operation on an ammunition depot or a terrorist training camp would not be prohibited because a farmer is plowing a field in the area; the farmer is not the object of attack and the operations would adhere to proportionality and military necessity. On the other hand, an extraordinary military advantage would be necessary to justify an operation posing risks of collateral death or injury to thousands of civilians. In "grayer" cases the legal question of whether the expected incidental harm is excessive may be very subjective. For this reason, States have chosen to apply a "clearly excessive" standard for determining whether a criminal violation has occurred.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Department of Defense law of war manual|publisher=United States Department of Defense Office of General Counsel|oclc=953877027}}</ref> When there is no justification for military action, such as civilians being made the object of attack, a proportionality analysis is unnecessary to conclude that the attack is unlawful. === International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia === For aerial strikes, pilots generally have to rely on information supplied by external sources (headquarters, ground troops) that a specific position is in fact a military target. In the case of former [[Yugoslavia]], [[NATO]] pilots hit a civilian object (the [[United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade|Chinese embassy in Belgrade]]) that was of no military significance, but the pilots had no idea of determining it aside from their orders. The committee ruled that "the aircrew involved in the attack should not be assigned any responsibility for the fact they were given the wrong target and that it is inappropriate to attempt to assign criminal responsibility for the incident to senior leaders because they were provided with wrong information by officials of another agency".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.icty.org/en/press/final-report-prosecutor-committee-established-review-nato-bombing-campaign-against-federal|title=Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|website=International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia|access-date=June 3, 2019|archive-date=March 31, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220331233523/https://www.icty.org/en/press/final-report-prosecutor-committee-established-review-nato-bombing-campaign-against-federal|url-status=live}}</ref> The report also notes that "Much of the material submitted to the OTP consisted of reports that civilians had been killed, often inviting the conclusion to be drawn that crimes had therefore been committed. Collateral casualties to civilians and collateral damage to civilian objects can occur for a variety of reasons."<ref name=":0" /> === Rendulic Rule === The Rendulic Rule is a standard by which commanders are judged. German General [[Lothar Rendulic]] was charged for ordering extensive destruction of civilian buildings and lands while retreating from a suspected enemy attack in what is called [[scorched earth]] policy for the military purpose of denying the use of ground for the enemy. The German troops retreating from Finnish Lapland believed Finland would be occupied by Soviet troops and destroyed many settlements while retreating to Norway under the command of Rendulic. He overestimated the perceived risk but argued that [[Hague IV Convention|Hague IV]] authorized the destruction because it was necessary to war. He was acquitted of that charge. Under the "Rendulic Rule" persons must assess the military necessity of an action based on the information available to them at that time; they cannot be judged based on information that subsequently comes to light.<ref name=":1" /> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page