When Army Officers Should Refuse Orders?
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15 May 2023 at 09:19. When Army Officers Should Refuse Orders? It seems like a simple answer, but it’s not because of the ‘Gray Area’. At the legal level, any order that can lead to Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, Ethnic Cleansing and such, then the army officer MUST refuse the orders because the army officer could be complicated in a Court Trial in the style of the Nuremberg Trials, regardless of the moral norms to not conduct these crimes. However, the ‘Gray Area’ during wars make things more complicated, namely if the order definitely leads to War Crimes and such, then it’s more simple to refuse, but if the order perhaps may lead to War Crimes and such, then the army officer should evaluate the probability for occurring War Crimes and such - this is the ‘Gray Area’. I think that if there is a high probability for occurring War Crimes and such, then army officers should refuse orders that come from ‘irresponsible politicians’ to avoid the legal risk of a Court Trial.
Another important question is whether Army Officers can participate in a ‘Democracy Revolution’, namely to ‘Protest via Strike’ and participate in demonstrations against their own government, especially against a non-democratic government. Army officers are citizens with full political rights in a democratic country, so they have the right to protest and participate in demonstrations. Nevertheless, if I am an army officer that would like to participate in demonstrations, then perhaps I will prefer to do it in civil clothes like other workers that unlikely will come with their Work Uniform to participate in demonstrations, still, if I do not have the time to change the Work Uniform, then I think that it’s still OK to participate in demonstrations with Work Uniform, yet I think that it’s better without Work Uniform. However, the answer about 'Protesting via Strike’ by army officers is again under the ‘Gray Area’. I think that army officers should have the right to 'Protest via Strike’, especially if they get a salary for their ‘army job’, yet a ‘Strike’ in an army should not occur during an emergency situation, still, the army is always under the definition of ‘potential emergency’, so this the ‘Gray Area’. Hence, each army officer should have the ‘Red Lines’ for illegal orders, as well as the ‘Red Lines’ regarding the 'Right to Protest via Strike’ versus the 'Army Duty'. At the end of the day, Preserving Democracy is a Top Duty of each Citizen in a Democratic Country, either by a Civilian Citizen or by an Army Officer Citizen.
International Treaties on the Laws of War
Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_war
List of declarations, conventions, treaties, and judgments on the laws of war:
1856 Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law abolished privateering.
1863 United States military adopts the Lieber Code, a compilation of extant international norms on the treatment of civilians assembled by German scholar Franz Lieber.
1864 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field.[33]
1868 St. Petersburg Declaration, officially the Declaration Renouncing the Use, in Time of War, of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes Weight, renounced the usage of explosive projectiles with a mass of less than 400 grams.
1874 Project of an International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of War (Brussels Declaration).[34] Signed in Brussels 27 August. This agreement never entered into force, but formed part of the basis for the codification of the laws of war at the 1899 Hague Peace Conference.[35][36]
1880 Manual of the Laws and Customs of War at Oxford. At its session in Geneva in 1874 the Institute of International Law appointed a committee to study the Brussels Declaration of the same year and to submit to the Institute its opinion and supplementary proposals on the subject. The work of the Institute led to the adoption of the Manual in 1880 and it went on to form part of the basis for the codification of the laws of war at the 1899 Hague Peace Conference.[36]
1899 Hague Conventions consisted of three main sections and three additional declarations:
I – Pacific Settlement of International Disputes
II – Laws and Customs of War on Land
III – Adaptation to Maritime Warfare of Principles of Geneva Convention of 1864
Declaration I – On the Launching of Projectiles and Explosives from Balloons
Declaration II – On the Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases
Declaration III – On the Use of Bullets Which Expand or Flatten Easily in the Human Body
1907 Hague Conventions had thirteen sections, of which twelve were ratified and entered into force, and two declarations:
I – The Pacific Settlement of International Disputes
II – The Limitation of Employment of Force for Recovery of Contract Debts
III – The Opening of Hostilities
IV – The Laws and Customs of War on Land
V – The Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land
VI – The Status of Enemy Merchant Ships at the Outbreak of Hostilities
VII – The Conversion of Merchant Ships into War-ships
VIII – The Laying of Automatic Submarine Contact Mines
IX – Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War
X – Adaptation to Maritime War of the Principles of the Geneva Convention
XI – Certain Restrictions with Regard to the Exercise of the Right of Capture in Naval War
XII – The Creation of an International Prize Court [Not Ratified]*
XIII – The Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War
Declaration I – extending Declaration II from the 1899 Conference to other types of aircraft
Declaration II – on the obligatory arbitration
1909 London Declaration concerning the Laws of Naval War largely reiterated existing law, although it showed greater regard to the rights of neutral entities. Never went into effect.
1922 The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty (6 February)
1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare. Never adopted in a legally binding form.[37]
1925 Geneva protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.[38]
1927–1930 Greco-German arbitration tribunal
1928 General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy (also known as the Pact of Paris or Kellogg-Briand Pact)
1929 Geneva Convention, Relative to the treatment of prisoners of war.
1930 Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament (22 April)
1935 Roerich Pact
1936 Second London Naval Treaty (25 March)
1938 Amsterdam Draft Convention for the Protection of Civilian Populations Against New Engines of War. (Officially the Draft Convention for the Protection of Civilian Populations Against New Engines of War. Amsterdam, 1938). This convention was never ratified.[39]
1938 League of Nations declaration for the "Protection of Civilian Populations Against Bombing From the Air in Case of War[40]
1945 United Nations Charter (entered into force on October 24, 1945)
1946 Judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg
1947 Nuremberg Principles formulated under UN General Assembly Resolution 177, 21 November 1947
1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
1949 Geneva Convention III Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
1949 Geneva Convention IV Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict
1971 Zagreb Resolution of the Institute of International Law on Conditions of Application of Humanitarian Rules of Armed Conflict to Hostilities in which the United Nations Forces May be Engaged
1974 United Nations Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict
1977 United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques
1977 Geneva Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts
1977 Geneva Protocol II Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts
1978 Red Cross Fundamental Rules of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts
1980 United Nations Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW)
1980 Protocol I on Non-Detectable Fragments
1980 Protocol II on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices
1980 Protocol III on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons
Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War (Protocol V to the 1980 Convention), 28 November 2003 (entered into force 12 November 2006)[41]
1994 San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea[42]
1994 ICRC/UNGA Guidelines for Military Manuals and Instructions on the Protection of the Environment in Time of Armed Conflict[43]
1994 UN Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel.[44]
1996 The International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons
1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (entered into force 1 July 2002)
2000 Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (entered into force 12 February 2002)
2005 Geneva Protocol III Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Adoption of an Additional Distinctive Emblem
2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (entered into force 1 August 2010)
2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (entered into force 22 January 2021)