Weakening Command Responsibility Doctrine? The Bemba Appeals Judgment

Abstract

The acceptance of commander’s responsibility is, in effect, acceptance of authority over persons permitted to kill. With that acceptance comes a heavy burden, grown out of practical and moral concerns and reflected in longstanding legal doctrine. At odds with this burden was the judgment of acquittal that the International Criminal Court Appeals Chamber entered in Bemba in 2018. An edited version of an essay originally appearing online as In Bemba, Command Responsibility Doctrine Ordered to Stand Down, this chapter argues for a statutory construction that would better serve the purposes of the ICC and the command responsibility doctrine