Features of responsibility of commanders during the war
Authors: Kolotukha I. 
Published: February 2023

Provisions on international cooperation of states for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security are fundamental in the system of norms contained in the UN Charter. War as a means of resolving international disputesis prohibited by international law. According to Clause 4 of Art. 2 of the UN Charter «all members of the United Nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force, both against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, and in any other manner incompatible with the purposes of the UN.»Despite this, the analysis of modern international relations shows that humanity has not yet managed to get rid of wars and other armed conflicts, which are mostly armed conflicts of a non-international nature. This is evidenced by the events in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, and the Caucasus, and since 2014 Ukraine has not been an exception, the international armed conflict on whose territory since February 24, 2022 has grown into a fullscale war waged by the Russian Federation on the scale of which Europe has not knew since the Second World War.Modern international relations are characterized by a change in the nature of the conflict, the emergence of a number of new categories and situations, an increase in the number of victims among the civilian population, and the increasinginternationalization of armed conflicts of a noninternational nature. In this regard, the question of attracting commanders from the armed forces is extremely urgent, especially in the conditions of the ongoing full-scale war unleashed by Russia.There are not few cases when, during the war or after its end, guilty military personnel and their direct and indirect commanders are brought to criminal responsibility for violating the laws and customs of war. That is why the authoraims to analyze international legal documents that answer the debatable question: should a commander be responsible for his subordinates if he did not know wha t they were doing?In the article, the author refers both to the Hague Conventions on the Laws and Customs of War of 1899 and 1907 and to Additional Protocol I of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the Protection of War Victims.Special attention is paid by the author to the provisions of the statute of the International Criminal Court and the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which essentially form the modern doctrine of criminal responsibility of commanders for violations of the laws and customs of war by their subordinates.The article provides examples of the judicial practice of criminalizing and convicting General Yamashita for the crimes of his subordinates during the Second World War and the case of Muchic during the war in Yugoslavia.This article actually confirms the relevance of the application of international humanitarian law in national legislation and points to significant gaps that cannot be filled without the help of international law as a whole. With his work, the author tries to draw the attention of domestic legislators to the problems of implementing international humanitarian law into the national law of Ukraine, and to single out the most important directions in this area.