## Facts

- The U.S. Department of the Army issued Field Manual 27-10 (FM 27-10), *The Law of Land Warfare* (1956), as official guidance on the law of war applicable to land warfare.
- Paragraph 509 appears on pages 182–83 within the manual’s chapter addressing remedies for violations of international law and war crimes.
- The surrounding provisions describe available responses to law-of-war violations, including protest, demands for punishment of offenders, inquiry procedures under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and punishment of captured offenders as war criminals.
- Paragraph 509 addresses individual responsibility for law-of-war violations, including responsibility of military personnel acting under superior orders.

## Issues

1. Whether the law of war recognizes individual criminal responsibility for violations (war crimes), apart from state responsibility.
2. Whether compliance with superior orders relieves a subordinate of responsibility for participating in war crimes.
3. What role, if any, superior orders play in assessing liability and punishment for law-of-war violations.

## Decision

- FM 27-10 states that individuals may incur criminal responsibility and be punished for violations of the law of war.
- The manual rejects superior orders as a complete defense to war-crimes liability where the unlawfulness of the order is apparent or should have been known.
- Superior orders may be considered in mitigation, rather than as automatic exoneration.

## Legal Principles

- Violations of the law of war can result in individual criminal punishment, including punishment of captured offenders as war criminals.
- A subordinate is not automatically immunized by acting under orders; personal responsibility may attach for unlawful acts.
- Orders that are clearly illegal do not justify compliance for purposes of avoiding criminal responsibility.
- Superior orders may affect sentencing or culpability assessment, but do not categorically bar liability.

## Conclusion

Paragraph 509 of FM 27-10 sets out U.S. Army doctrine that the law of war imposes individual criminal responsibility for war crimes and that superior orders generally do not excuse participation in clearly unlawful acts, though they may be weighed in mitigation.


U.S. Dep’t of the Army, Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare para. 509 (1956)