Military

Necessity
Yoram Dinstein

Content type: Product: Max Planck

Encyclopedia Entries Encyclopedia of Public
Article last updated: May International Law [MPEPIL]
2009

Subject(s):
Military matters — Necessity — Armed conflict — Geneva Conventions 1949 — Military necessity —
Weapons
Published under the auspices of the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law
under the direction of Rüdiger Wolfrum.

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 A. Military Necessity and Humanitarian Considerations
1 Military necessity has been authoritatively defined by an American Military Tribunal in the 1948
Hostage Case (part of the ‘Subsequent Proceedings’ at Nuremberg) as follows:

Military necessity permits a belligerent, subject to the laws of war, to apply any amount and
kind of force to compel the complete submission of the enemy with the least possible
expenditure of time, life, and money. (At 1253)

2 In the final analysis, the law of international armed conflict is a product of reconciliation between
demands of military necessity and humanitarian considerations. If military necessity were to prevail
completely, belligerent parties would have full freedom of action, with a view to winning a war. If
humanitarian considerations were the only guide to the conduct of hostilities, the waging of war
would become impossible by dint of the death, injury, and suffering that unavoidably accompany it.
The law of international armed conflict therefore takes a middle road, rendering unto military
necessity what is due to it, while protecting and respecting at least a minimal level of
humanitarianism even in the midst of hostilities.

3 There are rare occasions upon which the demands of military necessity converge with
humanitarian considerations. By way of illustration, under Art. 25 Hague Regulations Respecting the
Laws and Customs of War on Land, annexed to the 1899 Convention concerning the Laws and
Customs of War on Land (‘1899 Hague Convention II’) and the 1907 Convention with Respect to the
Laws and Customs of War by Land (‘1907 Hague Convention IV’) it is prohibited to attack
undefended towns, villages, or buildings. In the words of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence’s
Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict: ‘The concept of an undefended place does not apply to
places in rear areas behind enemy lines, only to places that are open to occupation by ground
forces’, and ‘[t]he reason for this rule is that there is no military need to attack a place that is not
being defended. It can simply be occupied without resistance or bypassed’ (para. 5.37.1). Military
necessity does not clash with humanitarian considerations in this instance: both prompt the law in
the same direction.

4 However, that is not the normal situation. Ordinarily, military necessity will point in one direction
and humanitarian considerations in another. In such circumstances, the law of international armed
conflict must weigh both in the balance and determine whether and how a compromise can be
worked out. The requisite balancing act was already stressed in the preamble to the Declaration
Renouncing the Use in Time of War of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes Weight ([signed 11
December 1868] [1907] 1 AJIL Supp 95; ‘St Petersburg Declaration’), which speaks of ‘limits within
which the necessities of war ought to yield to the requirements of humanity’. The preamble to 1899
Hague Convention II and 1907 Hague Convention IV is in the same vein.

5 Whether the framers of an international treaty have successfully hammered out the best
possible compromise between military necessity and humanitarianism is a matter of judgment. The
process of negotiations may lead to results that appear to be arbitrary, but this is the nature of
every compromise. Thus, in the case of the St Petersburg Declaration, the framers reached the
conclusion that they should renounce in both land warfare and naval warfare the employment ‘of
any projectile of less weight than four hundred grammes, which is explosive, or is charged with
fulminating or inflammable substances’ (at 96). The cut-off figure of 400 grammes was designed to
distinguish between artillery shells and anti-personnel bullets, but of course there is nothing singling
it out as humanitarian per se.

6 The St Petersburg Declaration also proclaims that, since ‘it is sufficient to disable the greatest
possible number of men’, in order to weaken the armed forces of the enemy, ‘this object would be
exceeded by the employment of arms which uselessly aggravate the sufferings of disabled men, or
render their death inevitable’ (at 95). This rationale has developed into one the most basic
principles of the law of international armed conflict, namely, the prohibition of causing superfluous

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 injury or unnecessary suffering (in French maux superflus) to enemy combatants (see Art. 35 (2)
Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol I [1977]). It is virtually a truism today that causing
unnecessary suffering to enemy combatants cannot be a matter of military necessity.

7 An equilibrium between military necessity and humanitarian considerations underlies every norm
of the law of international armed conflict, whether customary in nature or drawn up in treaty form.
Each norm reflects the equilibrium in a different fashion. At times, it appears that military necessity
has trumped humanitarian considerations. On other occasions, the opposite seems to be the case.
Either way, the solution chosen by the framers of the treaty—or consolidated in the general
practice of States—must be viewed as binding on Contracting Parties to the treaty, or on the entire
international community, in the very form in which it is constructed. Belligerent parties are not free
to question the manner in which the compromise between military necessity and humanitarian
considerations was forged by the framers. In particular, they cannot try to avoid implementation of
a given norm in the name of military necessity.

B. Military Necessity and the International Law of Armed Conflict

8 In the past, it was often claimed that a belligerent party is at liberty to deviate from the law of
international armed conflict when military necessity—especially in dire circumstances—so
demanded. This claim, which actually means that military necessity is superior to the law, is now
completely defunct. At present, it is indisputable that if ‘necessity knows no law’, then—at bottom—
there is no law. It is universally acknowledged that the law of international armed conflict must
determine when, and on what conditions, military necessity should be in play. In the words of the
summing-up by a British Judge Advocate in the Manstein war crimes trial of 1949, the law ‘cannot
be overridden by [military] necessity, except in those special cases where the law itself makes
provision for that eventuality’ (Manstein Case at 512). This is so because ‘[m]ilitary necessity has
already been taken into consideration in the framing’ of the law (ibid), and any allowance for
military necessity must be built into the norm. The same conclusion may be drawn already from the
words ‘subject to the laws of war’ in the definition of military necessity, as quoted from the Hostage
Case (see para. 1 above). Military necessity cannot be invoked in order to deviate from or
circumvent a specific provision of the law, unless an exception is expressly embraced in the
provision itself.

9 A good practical illustration can be found in a scenario that unfolded in the Thiele and Steinert
Case, tried by a United States Military Commission in Augsburg in 1945. A German unit was
surrounded by American troops, from whom the Germans were hiding. When a wounded American
soldier was taken prisoner by them, he was executed. At their trial, the persons responsible ‘raised
the defence that their acts were legal because based on military necessity’ (United States of
America v Gunther Thiele and Georg Steinert at 58). Yet, the defence was rightly rejected. The law
of international armed conflict ordains that a prisoner of war must never be murdered by his
captors, and no exception is allowed on the ground of military necessity. If keeping a prisoner of
war in captivity might endanger the safety of the captors, who are themselves in hiding, they have
no lawful option but to release him or her (see Art. 41 (3) Additional Protocol I).

10 The spurious and passé contention by low-ranking war criminals that grave breaches of the
law of international armed conflict should be excused because of imperative demands of military
necessity has a no less untenable parallel in claims made by high-level commanders and civilians
that the law must give way when a State is facing a military defeat that could be fatal to its survival.
In the Krupp Case of 1948 (another trial of the ‘Subsequent Proceedings’ at Nuremberg), an
American Tribunal expressly rejected the argument that when a belligerent party is hard pressed in
war, and going through a great emergency, the law of international armed conflict may be set
aside. The judgment states categorically:

these rules and customs of warfare are designed specifically for all phases of war. They

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 comprise the law for such emergency. To claim that they can be wantonly—and at the sole
discretion of anyone belligerent—disregarded when he considers his own situation to be
critical, means nothing more or less than to abrogate the laws and customs of war entirely.
(Krupp Case at 1347)

11 Curiously enough, in its 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear
Weapons, the International Court of Justice said that it

cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful
or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a
State would be at stake. (At para. 105)

Thenexus between the use of nuclear weapons and the survival of a State is insupportable. Either
nuclear weapons are lawful under certain conditions or they are not, but the fact that the very
survival of a State is at stake cannot possibly affect that conclusion. If nuclear weapons are lawful,
they are lawful to all States. If they are not lawful, the unlawfulness cannot be diminished only
because the survival of a particular State is at stake. Otherwise, what we have here is a throwback
to the outdated concept that self-preservation is a fundamental right of States, prevailing over all
other considerations (see also Nuclear Weapons and Warfare).

C. Military Necessity as an Explicit Exception to a Norm of Law

12 Some rules pertaining to international armed conflict make express allowance for military
necessity as an exception to the norm. The most prominent example is Art. 23 (g) Hague
Regulations, whereby it is prohibited ‘[t]o destroy or seize the enemy’s property, unless such
destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war’. Art. 8 (2) (b)(xiii)
Statute of the International Criminal Court (‘Rome Statute’) brands as a war crime ‘[d]estroying or
seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the
necessities of war’. This is a reiteration of the Hague language. However, in the Elements of Crimes,
the phrase ‘imperatively demanded by the necessities of war’ was replaced by: ‘[t]he destruction
or seizure was not justified by military necessity’ (Element No 5 under Art. 8 (2) (b)(xiii) Rome
Statute). Military necessity was thus viewed by the authors of the Elements of Crime as essentially
the same as ‘the necessities of war’. While military necessity is the modern idiom, there are other
semantic ways to coin the same expression. In Art. 53 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection
of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 (‘Geneva Convention IV’), as regards the prohibition of
destruction of property in occupied territories, the phrase used is ‘except where such destruction
is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations’.

13 Interestingly, the qualifying adverb ‘imperatively’ was also deleted in the Elements of Crimes.
Although ‘imperatively’ is commonly associated in treaty texts with military necessity, other
adverbs are used in some texts, for instance, ‘absolutely’ in Art. 53 Geneva Convention IV. The
modern tendency is to regard all such adverbs as synonymous and self-evident, and, therefore,
redundant. A military necessity qualifies only when it is imperative.

14 Military necessity is recognized as an exception to other diverse rules of international armed

conflict. Accordingly, Art. 28 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded,
Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of 1949 (‘Geneva Convention II’), relating
to combat occurring on board of a warship, decrees that sick-bays must be respected. The
commander into whose power the sick-bays have fallen may ‘apply them to other purposes in case
of urgent military necessity’ on condition that the proper care of wounded and sick accommodated
there is ensured. As the ICRC Commentary on the Convention states, the captured warship may
even be destroyed, provided that the wounded and sick are transferred to another vessel: ‘Thus,
by a succession of alternate compromises, a balance can be found between military needs and the
dictates of humanity’ (Pictet vol 1, 177).

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 15 Art. 62 (1) Additional Protocol I lays down the duty to protect civilian civil defence organizations
and their personnel, adding: ‘They shall be entitled to perform their civil defence tasks except in
case of imperative military necessity’ (Civil Defence). Similarly, Art. 71 (3) Additional Protocol I,
which imposes a duty of assistance to relief personnel in carrying out their humanitarian mission,
adds: ‘Only in case of imperative military necessity may the activities of the relief personnel be
limited or their movements temporarily restricted.’

16 Military necessity as an exception to a rule of international armed conflict may apply not only in
the relations between the belligerent parties, but also in their relations with neutral States. The most
egregious example relates to the interaction with neutrals who serve as protecting powers under
the Geneva Conventions. Art. 8 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the
Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (‘Geneva Convention I’)—as well as of Geneva
Convention II—deals with activities of Protecting Powers. At the end of the third paragraph, the
following sentence was added: ‘Their activities shall only be restricted as an exceptional and
temporary measure when this is rendered necessary by imperative military necessities’. The
sentence was omitted from the counterpart provisions of Geneva Convention relative to the
Treatment of Prisoners of War (‘Geneva Conventions III’) and Geneva Convention IV governing the
treatment of prisoners of war and civilians. The ICRC Commentary on the sentence ‘which gave rise
to keen opposition’ is that Geneva Convention I ‘mainly applies to the battlefield or its immediate
surroundings’ (Pictet vol 1, 100) where military operations may have to be kept secret from prying
eyes—as does the area of naval operations under Geneva Convention II—but the qualification does
not affect Geneva Convention III or IV.

17 Occasionally, a norm of international armed conflict would make an exception relating to

military necessity without using this locution or any of its equivalents. In this manner, Art. 57 (2)(c)
Additional Protocol I requires that ‘effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may
affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit’. The last phrase was mainly
intended to cover instances ‘when the element of surprise in the attack is a condition of its
success’ (Sandoz Swinarski and Zimmermann para. 2223). This is a prime example of a military
necessity to avoid giving a warning.

18 Military necessity may justify derogation from a norm only when a ‘waiver’ is made. Thus, Art. 4
(1) Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954
(‘Hague Convention on Cultural Property’) imposes on belligerent parties the obligation to respect
cultural property as defined, rather expansively, in its Art. 1. However, Art. 4 (2) Hague Convention
on Cultural Property expressly allows waiver of the obligation ‘in cases where military necessity
imperatively requires such a waiver’. The waiver decision may be taken by any competent officer
using his or her subjective assessment. But the waiver has to be decided upon, and therefore,
unlike destruction of ordinary property during hostilities, it cannot happen unintentionally. Besides,
a Second Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of
Armed Conflict ([done 26 March 1999, entered into force 9 March 2004] 2253 UNTS 172; ‘Second
Protocol’) narrows down this exception by insisting that the waiver from attack may only be invoked
when and for as long as (i) the cultural property has, ‘by its function, been made into a military
objective’, and (ii) ‘there is no feasible alternative available to obtain a similar military advantage’
(Art. 6 (a) Second Protocol). Furthermore, the waiver decision under the Second Protocol must
ordinarily be taken by an officer commanding a battalion or larger unit. The protocol also confers
enhanced protection on some cultural property, ensuring their immunity from attack. However, this
protection can also be lost when certain conditions are met, although in that case the attack can
only be ordered ‘at the highest operational level of command’ (Art. 13 (2) (c)(i) Second Protocol).

19 As a rule, the justification of military necessity—when available as a permissible exception to a

specific norm—is put at the disposal of both belligerent parties. But that is not uniformly the case.
Under Art. 54 (2) Additional Protocol I, ‘[i]t is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless
objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population’ such as foodstuffs, crops, and

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 drinking water installations. Yet, ‘where required by imperative military necessity’, a derogation from
this prohibition is allowed solely to the belligerent party acting ‘in the defence of its national territory
against invasion’ (Art. 54 (5) Additional Protocol I). It follows that a ‘scorched earth’ policy is
specifically permitted in circumstances of military necessity to one side in an international armed
conflict when retreating within the national territory, but not to the other.

D. Conditions of Reliance on the Exception of Military Necessity

20 When, under specific rules of the law of international armed conflict, military necessity may
justify departure from a norm, that does not denote that ‘anything goes’. There are two limbs in the
expression military necessity, and both of them have to be met. First of all, there has to be a
necessity. Secondly, the necessity must be military, ie it cannot be merely political or personal.

1. Military Necessity versus Wanton Acts

21 Military necessity connotes that the act committed or planned would turn to the military
advantage of a belligerent party in its effort to win the war. The expression military advantage
appears in diverse contexts (see, eg, para. 18 above). Most notably, it figures in Art. 52 (2)
Additional Protocol I, which defines military objectives susceptible to attack as limited to certain
objects ‘whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at
the time, offers a definite military advantage’. The military advantage must be concrete rather than
speculative, but it is not restricted to tactical or local gains. Interestingly, pursuant to Art. 8 (2) (b)
(iv) Rome Statute—using the phrase ‘military advantage’ for the definition of a war crime—the
language resorted to is that of ‘the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated’. In
the words of the Elements of Crimes: ‘Such advantage may or may not be temporally or
geographically related to the object of the attack’ (footnote 36 Element No 2 under Art. 8 (2) (b)(iv)
Rome Statute).

22 The notion of military advantage also plays an important role in the application of the principle
of proportionality, whereby, in the words of Art. 51 (5) (b) Additional Protocol I, it is forbidden to
launch

an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians,
damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation
to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Oncemore, it is the ‘overall’ concrete and direct military advantage that counts.
23 When no military advantage is anticipated, it is impossible to speak of the existence of a
military necessity to pursue a certain conduct. A good illustration is that of destruction of property
(see para.12 above). As emphasized by the Hostage Judgment, ‘[d]estruction as an end in itself is
a violation of international law. There must be some reasonable connection between the
destruction of property and the overcoming of the enemy forces’ (at 1253–54). When no
‘reasonable connection’—justifying the destruction of enemy property—may be established, such
destruction would be deemed wanton and, as such, unlawful. A good modern example of wanton,
and hence, illicit destruction of enemy property in wartime is the setting on fire by retreating Iraqi
troops of hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells in the Iraq-Kuwait War (1990–91) without gaining any
commensurate military advantage from the huge conflagration. Vandalism has nothing to do with
military necessity to destroy property in the course of hostilities.

24 Pursuant to Art. 147 Geneva Convention IV, ‘extensive destruction and appropriation of
property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly’ is a grave
breach of the convention. As such, it is a war crime under Art. 8 (2) (a)(iv) Rome Statute. In the
Blaškić Case of 2000, a Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia held that

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 [t]o constitute a grave breach, the destruction unjustified by military necessity must be
extensive, unlawful and wanton. The notion of ‘extensive’ is evaluated according to the
facts of the case—a single act, such as the destruction of a hospital, may suffice to
characterize an offence under this count. (para. 157)

However, the word ‘extensive’ does not appear in the counterpart war crime defined in Art. 8 (2)
(b)(xiii) Rome Statute (see para. 12 above).

2. Military Necessity versus Political or Personal Considerations

25 As pointed out, military necessity does not embrace purely political considerations (see para.
20 above). When, atypically, the framers of a treaty think that political considerations should be
admissible, side by side with military necessity, they say so overtly. Thus, Art. 76 (3) Geneva
Convention III, dealing with correspondence addressed to prisoners of war or dispatched by them,
says: ‘Any prohibition of correspondence ordered by Parties to the conflict, either for military or
political reasons, shall be only temporary and its duration shall be as short as possible.’ When no
reference to political reasons is made, they cannot be deemed relevant.

26 Personal motives never constitute military necessity. Consequently, pillage, meaning the
appropriation of property, without the consent of the owner, for private or personal use, cannot be
countenanced. The Elements of Crimes relating to Art. 8 (2) (b)(xvi) Rome Statute—branding pillage
as a war crime—include a footnote saying that ‘appropriations justified by military necessity cannot
constitute the crime of pillage’ (footnote 47 Element No 2 under Art. 8 (2) (b)(xvi) Rome Statute).
The reverse is equally true: pillage cannot be justified under the rubric of military necessity.

E. Assessment
27 Although the international law of armed conflict is usually designated nowadays as international
humanitarian law, it would be wrong to believe that humanitarian considerations always trump the
demands of military necessity. The balance between military necessity and humanitarian
consideration in the lex lata is based on a realistic evaluation of wartime constraints, and
concessions to military necessity are routinely made. The treatment of the issue of destruction of
enemy property is the best indication of the triumph of pragmatism over idealism. Genuine military
necessity can warrant the destruction of enemy property in attack, in defence and even when
armed forces are stationary. Fortifications may be built, razing pre-existing construction; lines of
fire may be cleared; crops may be crushed by moving tanks, artillery and heavy equipment; trees
may be cut; and so forth.

28 When military necessity is an admissible justification for an act, such as the destruction of
property in the course of hostilities, a ‘great deal of latitude’ must be accorded to the commander
on the spot—in the words of the 1948 judgment of an American Military Tribunal in the ‘Subsequent
Proceedings’ in the High Command Case. Surely, the commander must exercise his or her
discretion in good faith. However, if an appraisal of the circumstances is carried out at a later stage
—particularly, in a war crime trial—it must be based on the combat situation as it appeared to the
commander at the time of action. The fact that with hindsight the picture is clearer and, perhaps the
military necessity looks less compelling, cannot alter the view emerging in good faith in real time. In
the language of the tribunal in the Hostage Case:

There is evidence in the record that there was no military necessity for this destruction and
devastation. An examination of the facts in retrospect can well sustain this conclusion. But
we are obliged to judge the situation as it appeared to the defendant at the time. If the facts
were such as would justify the action by the exercise of judgment, after giving
consideration to all the factors and existing possibilities, even though the conclusion
reached may have been faulty, it cannot be said to be criminal. After giving careful

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 consideration to all the evidence on the subject, we are convinced that the defendant
cannot be held criminally responsible although when viewed in retrospect, the danger did
not actually exist. (At 1296)

Pragmatism prevails yet again.

Select Bibliography
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L Oppenheim Oppenheim’s International Law vol 2 Disputes, War and Neutrality (H
Lauterpacht (ed), 7th ed Longmans London 1952).
JS Pictet The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949: Commentary vol 1 Geneva
Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces
in the Field (ICRC Geneva 1952) 100–1.
WG Downey ‘The Law of War and Military Necessity’ (1953) 47 AJIL 251–62.
NCH Dunbar ‘The Significance of Military Necessity in the Law of War’ (1955) 67 JR 201–12.
RW Tucker The Law of War and Neutrality at Sea (US Government Printing Office
Washington DC 1957).
JS Pictet The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949: Commentary vol 2 Geneva
Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked
Members of Armed Forces at Sea (ICRC Geneva 1960) 64–65,
177.
GIAD Draper ‘Military Necessity and Humanitarian Imperatives’ (1973) 12 RevDrMilDrGuerre
129–42.
E Rauch ‘Le concept de nécessité militaire dans le droit de la guerre’ (1980) 19
RevDrMilDrGuerre 205–37.
Y Sandoz C Swinarski, and B Zimmermann (eds) Commentary on the Additional Protocols of
8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Nijhoff Geneva 1987).
H McCoubrey ‘The Nature of the Modern Doctrine of Military Necessity’ (1991) 30
RevDrMilDrGuerre 215–42.
J Toman The Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict: Commentary on
the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its
Protocol, Signed on 14 May 1954 in The Hague, and on Other Instruments of International
Law concerning such Protection (Dartmouth Aldershot 1996) 72–79.
BM Carnahan ‘Lincoln, Lieber and the Laws of War: The Origins and Limits of the Principle of
Military Necessity’ (1998) 92 AJIL 213–31.
MG Kohen ‘The Notion of “State Survival” in International Law’ in L Boisson de Chazournes
and P Sands (eds) International Law, the International Court of Justice and Nuclear
Weapons (CUP Cambridge 1999) 293–314.
K Dörmann Elements of War Crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court: Sources and Commentary (CUP Cambridge 2003).
Y Dinstein The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (CUP
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158–60,
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JG Gardam Necessity, Proportionality and the Use of Force by States (CUP Cambridge
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APV Rogers Law on the Battlefield (2nd ed Juris New York 2004) 3–7.
D Fleck (ed) The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law (2nd ed OUP Oxford 2008)
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N Melzer Targeted Killing in International Law (OUP Oxford 2008) 278–99.

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 Select Documents
High Command Case (United States of America v Wilhelm von Leeb et al) (Judgment) (27
October 1948) in Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals vol 11 (US
Government Printing Office Washington DC 1950) 462.
Hostage Case (United States v List) (Judgment) (19 February 1948) in Trials of War
Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals vol 11 (US Government Printing Office
Washington DC 1950) 1230.
Krupp Case (United States of America v Alfried Felix Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach et al)
(Judgment) (31 July 1948) in Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals
vol 9 (US Government Printing Office Washington DC 1950) 1327.
Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 226.
Manstein Case (Re von Lewinski [called von Manstein]) (19 December 1949) in (1955) 16
Annual Digest and Reports of Public International Law Cases 509.
Prosecutor v Blaškić (Judgment) IT-95-14 (3 March 2000).
United States of America v Gunther Thiele and Georg Steinert (13 June 1945) in (1948) 3
Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals 56.

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