The Defence of 'Obedience to Superior Orders' in International Law

Yoram Dinstein (Professor Emeritus of International Law, Tel Aviv University)

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English

Oxford University Press
25 October 2012

War crimes; Jurisdiction & immunities; International humanitarian law; International criminal law

The first comprehensive monograph on the defence of superior orders after the second world war, which remains pre-eminent in the field, the republication of this highly-sophisticated work once again makes this book available to scholars and students in the field. First published in 1965, Yoram Dinstein set the standard for future analysis of this issue, providing a ground-breaking interpretation that integrated domestic and international law to provide a subtle and nuanced challenge to the countervailing perceptions of the time, shaped as they were by the Nuremburg and Eichmann trials. The recent jurisprudence of the ad hoc Tribunals has shown remarkably similar analyses to those offered by Dinstein in this book, demonstrating that this key work remains relevant today.

Reviewing the relevant precedents that existed at the time, this book shows that superior orders were not, in and of themselves, a defence, but that orders were relevant to other defences, and therefore should not be entirely ignored. Assessing the issue on a conceptual and practical level, and offering an extraordinary level of detail, this is a is a seminal work in international criminal law. It makes required reading for scholars, students, and practitioners of international criminal law.

By: Yoram Dinstein (Professor Emeritus of International Law Tel Aviv University)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 233mm, Width: 161mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 460g
ISBN: 9780199670819
ISBN 10: 0199670811
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 25 October 2012
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Part I: National Law 1: The Dilemma and its Solutions 2: The Leipzig Trials Part II: International Theory 1: The Manifest Illegality Principle and the Personal Knowledge Principle 2: The Doctrine of Respondeat Superior 3: The Doctrine of Absolute Liability 4: The Mens Rea Principle Part III: International Legislation, 1919-1945 1: Initial Irresolution 2: The Negation of the Plea of Obedience to Superior Orders Part IV: The Cases 1: Trials before International Tribunals 2: Trials before National Courts Part V: International Legislation Since 1946 1: Doubts and Vacillations 2: The Work of the International Law Commission Conclusions

Yoram Dinstein is Professor Emeritus of International Law at Tel-Aviv University. He has twice served as the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, has previously been a Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, a Meltzer Visiting Professor of Law at New York University, and a visiting Professor of Law at the University of Toronto. He has served as Chairman of the Israel national branch of Amnesty International, as a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, and on the Council of the San Remo International Institute of Humanitarian Law.

Reviews for The Defence of 'Obedience to Superior Orders' in International Law

The Defence is a seminal work in international, criminal, and domestic law... the most telling thing that can be said about the specifics of the argumentation in The Defence is that whenever I think that I have a new idea about superior orders, the first thing I do is to look to see whether it is already there in The Defence. More often than not it is. That is not the only reason that I think The Defence is so important. It is also extremely significant that at a methodological level it paved the way for, and showed the necessity of, the integration of international law and criminal law scholarship, and its contribution to both is what international criminal lawyers ought to always bear in mind. Rob Cryer, Journal of International Criminal Justice (2011)