The rules of actusreaus and mens rea in International criminal law ought to the support victims of human rights violations through liability of combatants

Mugabi, Ivan 2015. The rules of actusreaus and mens rea in International criminal law ought to the support victims of human rights violations through liability of combatants. Us-China Law Review 12 (6) , pp. 498-505. 10.17265/1548-6605/2015.06.003

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Abstract

The normative principles of criminal law were in some cases founded upon concepts of individual criminal responsibility for a person’s unlawful conduct. However under international criminal law the challenges of individual criminal responsibility may tend to arise from the effects of the hierarchal based-leadership structures that are used in the military. The hierarchal based structures are operationalised through a line of command which enhances maximum obedience to the instructions issued by military leaders. Disciplinary actions could be used under the military codes of practice to encourage compliance with the line of command. Possibly the line of command might be contributing to some cases of human rights violations. The problems that the line of command might creat to individual criminal responsibility are dealt with under this article. Cases where the members of armed forces are instructed by their superiors to act upon the instructions that are inconsistent with norms of human right protection are taken into account by this paper. The paper considers that in other cases those instructions have turned out as; misleading, misguiding or founded upon misconceived facts that may result into war crimes or crimes against humanity. This article examines how the principles of private criminal law have contributed in responding to the challenges of international criminal law. The article also examines if these developments have reshaped the

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society (CCELS) Cardiff Centre for Crime, Law and Justice (CCLJ) Law Department of Politics and International Relations (POLIR)
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General) K Law > KZ Law of Nations
Publisher:	David Publishing Company
ISSN:	1548-6605
Related URLs:	http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?a...
Date of Acceptance:	2014
Last Modified:	04 Aug 2022 01:47
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/83438

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