Reprisals In Military

1. A reprisal, similar to military necessity, offers a justification for setting aside the protection of innocents under jus in bello. Furthermore, this is a legal remedy used to stop future events of war crimes, or to force the opponent side to offer some sort of repair or adjustment to the war crimes already done. Reprisals as we noted, are counterattacks that would be consider violations of the laws of war, but sometimes, in extreme scenarios, are permitted as “a means of forcing one’s enemy to follow the laws of war.” Moreover, this acts are “not required to reflect the type of violation that they seek to stem,” instead, the conduct of the reprisals depends entirely on the judgment of the party initiating them. Hence, it is crucial that

Based n this idea, Cohen argues that is justifiable that the execution of the German soldiers by the French Forces. Furthermore, he states that the responsibility of this murders relies on the Germans’ shoulders, because the “responsibility lies, not on the hand of those who have been placed in the dilemma, but of those who created it” (p.173). Furthermore, he provides two obligation the according to his point of view, override the protection of the innocents. The first one states that “the French cause is of greater importance than the prohibition against murdering prisoners” and the second, “the French had a responsibility to protect those of their forces who had fallen into enemy hands.” In this scenario, the second obligation justifies French Forces for their reprisal due to their duty to protect their soldiers that were still in

Michael Walzer states, “The laws of war must be obeyed until the heavens fall” (p.163). He named this as a supreme emergency, and uses Nazi Germany’s early successes in WWII as an example of a supreme emergency for Great Britain. Based on his argument, only when a nation’s is facing such enemy that is causing a tremendous harm, and there is a major concern about the outcome, it is justifiable to set aside the principles of war and act under a supreme emergency. In this case, the Western Allies bombing German population centers. According to Walzer, “military necessity” should be called “political necessity,” because supreme emergencies do not happen at the tactical or unit level (such soldiers), and only when a nation is facing an imminent, disastrous defeat (that could result on enslavement or genocide like in the Holocaust) may military necessity be permitted. He also add a guide that specifies that since justification for killing or putting at risk one’s own citizen to accomplish military objectives, it is also permissible to apply this same criteria to other noncombatants from the other party. For Walzer it is crucial the proportionality between the human suffering and the positive outcome of such actions. He specifies that the means need to be necessary because military necessity must always be used as a last resort, and sufficient because the proportionality of the means and the outcome must also be a priority. Therefore, Walzer eliminate military necessity as a