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JAGs, JAG Schools, and Military CourtsBack to Top

Overview and General StuffBack to Top Political activity guidelines for DoD and government personnelBack to Top U.S. Constitution and U.S. LawBack to Top USA PATRIOT ActBack to Top Military Commissions - TribunalsBack to Top Treatment of POWs and Detainees, including InterrogationBack to Top Abu Ghraib Prison IncidentBack to Top TortureBack to Top Just War TheoryBack to Top War Crimes and Crimes Against HumanityBack to Top
  • See also the Laws of War section below

  • See also the Military Commissions - Tribunals section above

  • See also Iraqi War Crimes on Conflict 21 website

  • Yamashita, Medina, and Beyond: Command Responsibility in Contemporary Military Operations (Local copy), by Smidt, in Military Law Review, Vol 164 - "the article looks at U.S. policy in terms of charging U.S. soldiers with war crimes"

  • Office of War Crimes Issues, State Department

  • International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), U.N.

  • From the UN factsheet on the International Criminal Court

      Genocide is defined as a list of prohibited acts, such as killing or causing serious harm, committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

      As set out in the Statute, crimes against humanity include crimes such as the extermination of civilians, enslavement, torture, rape, forced pregnancy, persecution on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender grounds, and enforced disappearances - but only when they are part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.

      The "widespread or systematic" qualification for crimes against humanity is very important, as it provides a higher threshold, requiring a particular magnitude and/or scope before a crime qualifies for the Court's jurisdiction. This differentiates random acts of violence - such as rape, murder, or even torture - that could be carried out, perhaps even by soldiers in uniform, but which may not actually qualify as crimes against humanity.

      War crimes include grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other serious violations of the laws and customs that can be applied in international armed conflict, and in armed conflict "not of an international character", as listed in the Statute, when they are committed as part of a plan or policy or on a large scale.

  • Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948

  • Human Shields
  • Article 51 of the 1977 amendment to the 1949 Geneva Conventions
    • The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.
DoD ResourcesBack to Top UCMJ & Manual for Courts-Martial (MCM)Back to Top Innocent Until Proven GuiltyBack to Top
  • The Uniformed Code of Military Justice states
      (c) Before a vote is taken on the findings, the military judge or the president of a court-martial without a military judge shall, in the presence of the accused and counsel, instruct the members of the court as to the elements of the offense and charge them -
        (1) that the accused must be presumed to be innocent until his guilt is established by legal and competent evidence beyond reasonable doubt;
        (2) that in the case being considered, if there is a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the accused, the doubt must be resolved in favor of the accused and he must be acquitted;
        (3) that, if there is a reasonable doubt as to the degree of guilt, the finding must be in a lower degree as to which there is no reasonable doubt; and
        (4) that the burden of proof to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt is upon the United States.
War Powers ResolutionBack to Top Laws of War and Laws in WarBack to Top Preventive and PreemptiveBack to Top
  • DoD Dictionary of Military Terms

    • preemptive attack - (DOD) An attack initiated on the basis of incontrovertible evidence that an enemy attack is imminent

    • preventive war - (DOD) A war initiated in the belief that military conflict, while not imminent, is inevitable, and that to delay would involve greater risk

    • preventive deployment - (DOD) The deployment of military forces to deter violence at the interface or zone of potential conflict where tension is rising among parties. Forces may be employed in such a way that they are indistinguishable from a peacekeeping force in terms of equipment, force posture, and activities. See also peace enforcement; peacekeeping; peace operations.
Assassination - ProhibitionBack to Top Laws of War - PeacekeepingBack to Top Posse Comitatus & Aiding CiviliansBack to Top EvidenceBack to Top Air Force Law PubsBack to Top Army Law PubsBack to Top Web Virtual Law LibraryBack to Top
  • Law on the Internet, WWW Virtual Library, maintained by Indiana University Law School
    • Law Schools & Libraries
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Legal Search/Resources OnlineBack to Top Documents OnlineBack to Top Legal Ethics and Standards of ConductBack to Top By and/or About CongressBack to Top NARABack to Top Legal CentersBack to Top Environmental Law/GuidanceBack to Top Regulatory Law & Intellectual PropertyBack to Top Appropriations LawsBack to Top Acquisition & Contract LawBack to Top Business and Employment LawBack to Top Continuing Legal EducationBack to Top Property and Tax LawBack to Top
  • Property Law, WWW Virtual Library, choose from topic list
  • Taxation, WWW Virtual Library, choose from topic list
Humanitarian LawBack to Top Constitutions of the WorldBack to Top International LawBack to Top Civil-LawBack to Top
  • A Primer on the Civil-Law System (Local copy), by Apple and Deyling, for Federal Judicial Center (FJC)

      Civil law is the dominant legal tradition today in most of Europe, all of Central and South America, parts of Asia and Africa, and even some discrete areas of the common-law world (e.g., Louisiana, Quebec, and Puerto Rico). Public international law and the law of the European Community are in large part the product of persons trained in the civil-law tradition. Civil law is older, more widely distributed, and in many ways more influential than the common law.

      Despite the prominence of the civil-law tradition, judges and lawyers trained in the common-law tradition tend to know little about either the history or present-day operation of the civil law. Beyond the most basic generalities—e.g., the common law follows an “adversarial” model while civil law is more “inquisitorial,” civil law is “code-based,” civil-law judges do not interpret the law but instead follow predetermined legal rules—judges and lawyers from the United States seldom have any deeper sense of the civil-law tradition.

      This overview is designed for judges and lawyers who seek to expand their knowledge of the civil-law tradition and who might wish to consider the civil law system as a source of legal reforms

Islamic LawBack to Top HistoryBack to Top Space Law and TreatiesBack to Top Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy ActBack to Top Journals and ReviewsBack to Top CourtsBack to Top Paralegals/Legal AssistantsBack to Top MiscellaneousBack to Top

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