山下标准

The Yamashita Standard

by Anne E. Mahle

山下标准

作者：安妮-E-马勒

在美国，有关指挥责任理论的现代法律标准基于美国最高法院在山下智之将军案中确立的先例。 法院的裁决被称为 "山下标准"。

山下奉文将军自 1944 年 10 月起担任日本皇军第十四集团军司令兼菲律宾群岛军事总督，直至 1945 年 9 月美军完全控制该群岛。 二战末期，山下奉文将军控制的部队对菲律宾平民犯下了无数暴行。 战争结束时，日本向美国无条件投降，山下将军也向驻扎在菲律宾的美军投降，并立即成为战俘。 他被美军关押在菲律宾联邦。

山下将军作为战俘被捕后，陆军军法署指控他违反了战争法。 这项指控包括指控他指挥的部队参与了 "蓄意计划......屠杀和消灭八打雁省的大部分平民......结果有 25 000 多名男子、妇女和儿童，他们都是手无寸铁的非战斗平民，遭到残酷虐待和杀害"。 山下将军被任命为军法署的六名律师担任辩护律师，并在由五名美国陆军军官组成的美国军事委员会受审。 山下将军对所有指控均不认罪。 他声称自己没有亲自参与日军的犯罪行为，没有下令实施这些行为，也没有控制他所指挥的部队。 委员会在听取了 286 名证人的证词后认定他有罪。 定罪后，山下将军向菲律宾联邦最高法院申请人身保护令。 山下将军在令状中对军事委员会的管辖权提出质疑，声称自己没有违反战争法，并声称自己被剥夺了《美国战争条款》、《日内瓦公约》和《美国宪法》规定的公平审判权。 菲律宾联邦最高法院完全驳回了他的请求。 将军随后向美国最高法院提出上诉。

在最高法院于 1946 年 2 月做出的裁决中，法院为军事指挥官就其下属的行为制定了明确的标准。 山下将军声称他本人并未参与或下令实施这些罪行，针对这一说法，法院将指控的核心内容描述为"[山下将军]作为军队指挥官非法违反了控制其指挥部成员行动的职责，'允许他们实施'广泛而普遍的暴行"。 法院承认，国际法通过战争法 "预先假定，[违反战争法]应通过指挥官对战争行动的控制来避免，指挥官在某种程度上对其下属负责"。 法院认为，如果指挥官没有这种责任，就无法阻止占领军对平民犯下暴行。 法院认为，山下将军作为驻菲律宾日军指挥官，"有责任在其权力范围内采取适当措施保护战俘和平民"。 山下将军的命令被驳回，他被美军处以绞刑。

自 1946 年最高法院做出该裁决以来，美国国会和全国各地的联邦法院一直以山下标准为依据。 许多重要的人权案件都直接引用了最高法院的判决，《酷刑受害者保护法》（"TVPA"）的立法史也是如此。 美国参议院委员会在援引山下标准解释《酷刑受害者保护法》时指出，"根据国际法，酷刑、即决处决或失踪的责任超出了实际实施这些行为的人的范围--任何拥有更高权力的人，只要授权、容忍或故意忽视这些行为，都要为此负责"。 美国上诉法院第二和第九巡回审判庭在 Kadic 诉 Karadzic，70 F.3d 232（1995 年）和 Hilao 诉 Estate of Marcos，103 F.3d 767（1996 年）的判决中确认了这一标准，而且在全国各地联邦法院根据《电视保护法》和《外国人侵权索赔法》（"ACTA"）审理的众多人权案件中，该标准一再得到认可。

山下标准 "被广泛接受并不能使其免受批评。 关于该标准的适用范围以及它在多大程度上要求军事指挥官对其下属的行为承担严格责任，已经提出了许多法律问题。 例如，前南斯拉夫问题国际刑事法庭（"前南问题国际法庭"）的判例拒绝接受军事指挥官的严格责任标准，部分原因是为了应对其面临的现实：在前南问题国际法庭的管辖下，许多根据指挥责任理论受到指控的人并不像山下那样是公认国家的军队指挥官，相反，他们对塞族共和国和黑塞哥-波斯那共和国等未获承认的实体的军事化部队进行军事指挥。 然而，"山下标准 "无疑将出现在对斯洛博丹-米洛舍维奇和其他曾在公认国家担任指挥职务的人的审判中，并将在国际刑事法院的判例中发挥作用。

资料来源

引号中提及最高法院裁决的文字摘自 In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1 (1946)。

参议院第 249 号报告，第 102 届国会，第一次会议，第 9 页，1991 年。

 

关于作者

Anne Mahle 是明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯市 Faegre & Benson 律师事务所的律师。 在法学院就读期间，在加州大学伯克利分校（Boalt Hall）国际人权法诊所卡罗琳-帕蒂-布卢姆（Carolyn Patty Blum）的指导下，参与了Romagoza等人诉Garcia等人一案。

The modern legal standard governing the doctrine of command responsibility in the United States rests upon the precedent established by the United States Supreme Court in the case of General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The Court's holding has become known as the "Yamashita Standard."

General Tomoyuki Yamashita was the Commanding General of the Fourteenth Army Group of the Japanese Imperial Army and the Military Governor on the Philippine Islands from October 1944 until full control of the Islands was assumed by United States forces in September 1945. In the waning days of World War II, numerous atrocities were committed by troops under General Yamashita's control against the civilian population of the Philippines. Pursuant to Japan's unconditional surrender to the United States at the end of the war, General Yamashita also surrendered to United States troops present in the Philippines and immediately became a prisoner of war. He was detained by the United States Army in the Commonwealth of the Philippines.

Upon his arrest as a prisoner of war, General Yamashita was charged by the Army's Judge Advocate General's Department with violations of the law of war. Included in this charge were allegations that forces under his command engaged in a "deliberate plan … to massacre and exterminate a large part of the civilian population of Batangas Province … as a result of which more than 25,000 men, women, and children all unarmed noncombatant civilians, were brutally mistreated and killed." General Yamashita was appointed six lawyers from within the JAG corps to serve as defense counsel, and was tried before a United States military commission of five United States Army Officers. General Yamashita pled not guilty to all charges. He asserted that he did not personally engage in the criminal acts committed by the Japanese troops, that he did not order these acts to be committed, and that he did not have control over the troops under his command. He was found guilty by the commission after it heard testimony from two hundred and eighty-six witnesses. Upon his conviction, General Yamashita filed a writ of habeas corpus with the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. In his writ, General Yamashita challenged the jurisdiction of the military commission, asserted that he did not commit a violation of the law of war, and claimed that he was denied a fair trial under the United States Articles of War, the Geneva Convention, and the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of the Philippines denied his writ in total. The General then appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

In the Supreme Court's decision, rendered in February 1946, the Court articulated a clear standard for military commanders with respect to the actions of their subordinates. In responding to General Yamashita's assertion that he did not personally participate in or order the commission of these offenses, the Court described the heart of the charge as being "an unlawful breach of duty by [General Yamashita] as an army commander to control the operations of members of his command by 'permitting them to commit' the extensive and widespread atrocities." The Court recognized that international law, through the law of war, "presupposes that [violations of the law of war] are to be avoided through the control of the operations of war by commanders who to some extent are responsible for their subordinates." The Court believed that absent such a duty upon commanders, nothing would prevent occupying forces from committing atrocities upon the civilian population. The Court held that General Yamashita was, by virtue of his position as commander of the Japanese forces in the Philippines, under an "affirmative duty to take such measures as were within his power and appropriate in the circumstances to protect prisoners of war and the civilian population." General Yamashita's writ was denied, and he was executed by hanging by the United States military.

Since the Supreme Court's decision in 1946, the United States Congress and federal courts throughout the country have relied on the Yamashita standard. Many important human rights cases cite directly from the Supreme Court decision, as does the legislative history of the Torture Victims Protection Act ("TVPA"). In citing to the Yamashita Standard for support in the interpretation of the TVPA, the United States Senate Committee stated, "under international law, responsibility for torture, summary execution, or disappearances extends beyond the person or persons who actually committed those acts -- anyone with higher authority who authorized, tolerated, or knowingly ignored those acts is liable for them." The Second and Ninth Circuits of the United States Court of Appeals affirmed this standard in their decisions Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232 (1995) and Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 767 (1996), and it has been repeatedly recognized as the standard in numerous human rights cases litigated under the TVPA and the Alien Tort Claims Act ("ACTA") in federal courts across the country.

Wide acceptance of the Yamashita Standard does not render it immune from critique. There have been a number of legal questions raised as to the reach of the Standard and the degree to which it imposes strict liability on a military commander for the actions of his or her subordinates. For example, the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ("ICTY") has rejected a strict liability standard for military commanders, in part as a response to the reality it faces: many of those charged under the doctrine of command responsibility under the jurisdiction of the ICTY were not commanders of armies of recognized states, as was Yamashita, instead they exerted military command over militarized troops of non-recognized entities such as the Republika Srpska and the Republic of Herzeg-Bosna. The Yamashita Standard, however, no doubt will arise in the trial of Slobodan Miloševic, and others who were in command positions in recognized nation states and will play a role in the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court.

Sources:

Text in quotes referring to the Supreme Court decision is taken from In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1 (1946).

Senate Report No. 249, 102nd Congress, 1st Session, page 9, 1991.

 

About the Author

Anne Mahle is an attorney at Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis, Minnesota. During law school worked on Romagoza et. al. v. Garcia et. al. under the supervision of Carolyn Patty Blum at the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of California Berkeley (Boalt Hall).