Command responsibility for rape

Command responsibility for rape

Although the Trial Chamber of the ICTY stated in the Kunarac, Kovac and Vukovic case that it will not 'accept low rank or a subordinate function as an escape from criminal prosecution' stating 'in time of peace as much as in time of war, men of substance do not abuse women', the ICTY has indicted a number of individuals for command (or superior) responsibility for crimes of sexual violence. The doctrine of command responsibility holds those in positions of superior authority liable for the acts of their subordinates. 

In the Celebici judgment, the ICTY found Zdravko Mucic guilty on the basis of command responsibility for the violations of international humanitarian law committed by guards at the camp. The tribunal stated, "The crimes committed in the Celebici prison-camp were so frequent and notorious that there is no way that Mr. Mucic could not have known or heard about them." Those crimes included rapes and sexual assaults committed by Mucic's subordinates. 

In the Blaskic judgment the ICTY convicted Tihomir Blaskic, a colonel in the armed forces of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) and Chief of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone of the HVO armed forces, for a range of humanitarian law violations, including war crimes, grave breaches and crimes against humanity against the Bosnian Muslim population of central Bosnia on the basis that he 'ordered, planned, instigated or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation, or execution of those crimes'.