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Volume I, s.4 General Principles of International Criminal Law, 24 Defences, Ch.24.2 Superior Orders

Andreas Zimmermann

From: The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Edited By: Professor Antonio Cassese, Professor Paola Gaeta, Mr John R.W.D. Jones

From: Oxford Public International Law (http://opil.ouplaw.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved.date: 01 December 2023

It was already Augustine who dealt with the problem of obedience with regard to unlawful acts and considered that even when a given ruler engaged in an unjust war, the soldier might still establish his innocence for having followed that very same order.1 In sharp contrast thereto, it was Grotius who stated that where a war was unjust, the individual soldier would then be entitled to refuse to participate.2 Finally Francisco de Vitoria distinguished between situations where it is evident that the war is unjust and where accordingly a subject is not under an...
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