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The Law of War and Military Necessity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2017

William Gerald Downey Jr.
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Extract

To many international lawyers and army officers the terms “law of war” and “military necessity” are mutually incompatible. Many army officers consider the law of war as no more than a collection of pious platitudes, valueless, so they think, because it has no force and effect. Some international lawyers regard military necessity as the bête noire of international jurisprudence, destroying all legal restriction and allowinguncontrolled brute force to rage rampant over the battlefield or wherever the military have control.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , April 1953 , pp. 251 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1953

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References

1 Queen v. Keyn, L. R. [1876] 2 Exch. Div. 63.

2 The S. S. Lotus, Permanent Court of International Justice, 2 Hudson, World Court Reports, 1927–1932, 20, 35. See also George A. Finch, The Sources of Modern International Law (1937), passim.

3 Fred K. Nielsen, International Law Applied to Reclamations, p. 7; U. S. v. Wilhelm List et al., XI Trials of War Criminals 1235.

4 These opinions, particularly those written during the period 1941–1945 when Colonel Archibald King, a member of the American Society of International Law, was Chief of the International Law Division, JAGO, are a priceless source of the numerous international law situations which confronted American commanders during World War II. Many of these opinions are still classified and are therefore not available, but it is hoped that they eventually will be declassified and made available for study by legal scholars.

5 The Paquete Habana, 175 U. S. 677; for an excellent discussion of the relationship between international law and United States domestic law, see Quincy Wright, The Enforcement of International Law Through Municipal Law in the United States (1916).

6 U. S. v. List et al., XI Trials of War Criminals 1248.

7 Art. VI, Sec. 2.

8 Art. I, See. 8, Clause 10.

9 Art. 18, U.C.M.J., Act of May 5, 1950, 64 Stat. 108; 50 U.S.C. 551–736.

10 See Strupp, Eléments du droit international public universel et américain (1927), pp. 168–169.

11 U. S. v. List et al., XI Trials of War Criminals 1252–1255.

12 General Orders 100, Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field, §14.

13 XI Trials of War Criminals 1252–1255.

14 Many of the positive laws of war appearing in the Hague Regulations of 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1929 and 1949 expressly permit exceptions due to military necessity. For an earlier discussion of this subject, see Josef L. Kunz, Kriegsrecht und Neutralitätsrecht (1935), pp. 26–28.

15 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 106.

16 Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, p. 32.

17 13 Wall. 623 (1870).

18 13 How. 115 (1853).

19 Ibid. 180.

20 U. S. v. List et al., XI Trials of War Criminals 1253 (italics added).

21 The High Command Trial, XI Trials of War Criminals 541 (italics added).

22 U. S. v. List et al., loc. cit., 1253.

23 Ibid.

24 Department of Army Pamphlet 20–150. The 1949 Conventions have not been ratified by the United States.

25 Downey, “Captured Enemy Property: Booty of War and Seized Enemy Property,” this Journal, Vol. 44 (1950), p. 488.

26 Par. 8, JCS 1067, Germany 1947–49, The Story in Documents (Dept. of State Publication 3556), p. 21.

27 Claim of Dr. F. K., MSS Opinion, dated Sept. 10, 1949, JAGO.

28 U. S. v. List et al., loc. cit., 1253–1254.

29 6 Hackworth, Digest of International Law 176.

30 42 Court of Claims 99, 114.

31 212 U. S. 297, 306, 308.

32 See In re Yamashita, 327 U. S. 1, 32 et seq.

33 XI Trials of War Criminals 563.

34 Ibid.

35 Spaight, War Rights on Land, p. 76.

36 U. S. Grant, Memoirs, p. 316.

37 Hague Convention IV, 36 Stat. 2277; U. S. Treaty Series, No. 539.

38 Field Manual 27–10, par. 34.

39 Ibid., par. 28.