Why Was The Lieber Code Important

The Lieber code established on 24 April 1863 was an order that applied the international laws of war to the United States Army. Today it is is the basis for the Law of Armed Conflict, as well as the Law of War. The Lieber Code was a military order that stated the laws of war into 157 articles that discussed how soldiers would conduct themselves in times of war when dealing with civilians, enemy prisoners of war or any other non-combatants. A man by the name of Dr. Francis Lieber was put in charge of creating this code during the Civil War (hence the name). The Lieber code was order to be apart of the United States Army General Orders and in 1863 it was written as the 100th General Order. The Lieber code was the first attempt at putting the Laws of War into one document. Today the Lieber code still plays a tremendously important role in the conduct of the U.S. Army during wartime efforts and it is essential that it’s understood by every soldier who deploys to a combat zone.

This is important for many reasons, One reason that units must understand and enforce the laws of war and ROEs are so incidents like the My Lai Massacre or the Kandahar/Panjwei Massacre do not happen again. Both of these incidents represent times when the Laws of War and ROEs were not enforced and because of this, many innocent civilians died. War is challenging enough but it's even more challenging when you kill the people that you are supposed to