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Empathy at War: The Distinction Between Reasonableness and the Reasonable Military Commander Standard

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Honest Errors? Combat Decision-Making 75 Years After the Hostage Case

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Abstract

There is a distinction between asking whether a military commander’s act was reasonable and asking whether a military commander acted in the manner in which a reasonable military commander would have acted. The difference is that only the second question compels a person assessing a given state of affairs to engage in empathetic perspective-taking. Accordingly, this chapter argues that the reasonable military commander test is a legal device which invites those who apply it to engage in empathetic perspective-taking. Construing the reasonable military commander test as a perspective-taking device brings into focus the crucial question of whose views and whose interests influence the legal evaluation of a commander’s behaviour. Understanding the reasonable military commander test in this way also directs attention to the role of empathy in the battlefield. It is important to be clear about this rationale of the reasonable military commander test in the battlefield in order to ensure that the conduct of military commanders is assessed accurately.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a comprehensive account of Hammerfest’s destruction, see the report “The Devastation of Hammerfest after the Compulsory Evacuation of the Population at the Beginning of the Month of November 1944” dated 20 April 1945 by the city’s engineer, Johannes Kummeneje. Excerpts of the report were cited by the prosecution during the Hostage case, see US Nuremberg Tribunal, “Transcript for NMT7: Hostage Case” 2761–2769 (27 August 1947), http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/transcripts/4-transcript-for-nmt-7-hostage-case [accessed 1 April 2023].

  2. 2.

    United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, United States v. Wilhelm List et al. (“Hostage Case”), Judgment, 19 February 1948, (1950) Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, p 1296.

  3. 3.

    Jodl A (1944) Teletype, dated 28 October 1944, from Chief of the Operations Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command to Armed Forces Commander in Chief, Norway Concerning the Evacuation of Northern Norway. Reproduced as document 754-PS by United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, p 836.

  4. 4.

    Rendulic L (1944) Teletype from 20th (Mountain) Army to Subordinate Units Concerning the Evacuation of Northern Norway. Reproduced as document NOKW-086 by United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, pp 1114–1117.

  5. 5.

    Rendulic L (1944) Teletype from 20th (Mountain) Army to Subordinate Units Concerning the Evacuation of Northern Norway. Reproduced as document NOKW-086 by United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, p 1117.

  6. 6.

    Rendulic’s testimony reproduced by US Nuremberg Tribunal, p 5542 (31 October 1947).

  7. 7.

    According to the tribunal’s own law report, the case was so called since “the greater part of the trial was concerned with alleged hostage or reprisal actions of one kind or another”, United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, p 759. The official designation of the case is, however, United States of America vs. Wilhelm List et al. (Case No. 7).

  8. 8.

    Ibid., p 1295.

  9. 9.

    Hague Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, opened for signature 18 October 1907, (1907) 3 Martens (3d) 504, entered into force 26 January 1910.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., Article 23(g).

  11. 11.

    United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, p 1295. See also Rendulic’s testimony reproduced by US Nuremberg Tribunal, p 5536 (30 October 1947).

  12. 12.

    United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, p 1296.

  13. 13.

    Ibid.

  14. 14.

    US Nuremberg Tribunal, p 5345 (31 October 1947). See also Rendulic 1965, p 374.

  15. 15.

    United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, p 1296.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., p 1297.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., p 1296.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., p 1297.

  19. 19.

    Rendulic was convicted, however, on counts one, three and four relating respectively to the “murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians”, to the “drafting, distribution, and execution of illegal orders”, and to the “murder, torture, and systematic terrorization, imprisonment in concentration camps, forced labor” of civilians, ibid., pp 1233–1234.

  20. 20.

    Clarke 2012, p 78; Merriam 2016, pp 111–112; Johansen 2019, p 77.

  21. 21.

    See Chap. 8.

  22. 22.

    USAF JAG Department 2014, p 19; Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel) 2009, para 125; Office of the Judge Advocate General (Canada) 2001, para 418(3). For an overview of the state practice in this area, see the International Humanitarian Law Database of the International Committee of the Red Cross, available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org [accessed 1 April 2023].

  23. 23.

    Montgomery 2002, p 189.

  24. 24.

    Human Rights Council 2009, paras 42, 700, 1922.

  25. 25.

    International Law Association’s Study Group on the Conduct of Hostilities in the 21st Century 2017, p 369.

  26. 26.

    Human Rights Watch 2016, p 7.

  27. 27.

    Supreme Court of Israel Sitting as a High Court of Justice, Hassan Khalaf Ali el Hamri v. Commander of the Judea and Samaria Region, Merits, 10 August 1982, [1982] HCJ No. 361/82, 1984 (1) Palestine Yearbook of International Law 129 (1982), p 133; The Supreme Court of Israel Sitting as the High Court of Justice, Beit Sourik Village Council v. The Government of Israel and the Commander of the IDF Forces in the West Bank, Merits, 30 June 2004, [2004] HCJ 2056/04, para 46. See also Supreme Court of Israel Sitting as High Court, Public Committee against Torture in Israel and Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment v Israel, Merits, 13 December 2006, [2006] HCJ 769/02, para 57.

  28. 28.

    International Criminal Court (Office of the Prosecutor) (2014), paras 26, 75, 81; International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (Trial Chamber 1), Prosecutor v. Stanislav Galić, Judgment and Opinion, 5 December 2003, IT-98-29-T (2003), paras 55, 58, 719.

  29. 29.

    ICTY Review Committee 2000. The authors of this report are at times credited with having created the standard of the “reasonable military commander”, see Henderson and Reece 2018, p 840. In fact, the expression dates back at least to the 1970s. See, for instance, Mallison and Mallison 1977, p 56.

  30. 30.

    ICTY Review Committee 2000, paras 49–50.

  31. 31.

    Jeutner forthcoming.

  32. 32.

    Notably, Immanuel Kant rejected the ideas of the sentimental enlightenment only in the last quarter of his life. See Frazer 2010, p 112.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., p 8.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p 34.

  35. 35.

    Bourke 1951, p 263.

  36. 36.

    Moyn 2006, p 399.

  37. 37.

    Or “moral taste”, as David Hume calls it. See Hume 1896, p 581.

  38. 38.

    Frazer 2010, p 4.

  39. 39.

    Hume 1896, p 365.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., p 576 (emphasis in original).

  41. 41.

    Ibid., p 581.

  42. 42.

    Hume 2006, p 75.

  43. 43.

    Hume 1896, pp 581–582 (emphasis in original).

  44. 44.

    Hunt 2007, p 65.

  45. 45.

    On the etymology and the relationship between the terms sympathy and empathy, see Moyn 2006, pp 399–400. See also Stueber 2019.

  46. 46.

    Hume 1889, p 158.

  47. 47.

    Smith 1976.

  48. 48.

    At times, Smith focusses on self-assessment, at times he focusses on passing judgment on others. But he maintains that both types of assessment are governed by the same principle, ibid., p 109.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., p 110.

  50. 50.

    See, generally, Del Mar 2018.

  51. 51.

    Raphael 2007, p 35.

  52. 52.

    Stueber 2019.

  53. 53.

    Del Mar 2018, p 64.

  54. 54.

    Raphael 2007, p 10.

  55. 55.

    Ibid., p 49.

  56. 56.

    See also, generally, ibid., Chapter 12.

  57. 57.

    Smith 1978, p 17.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., pp 16–17.

  59. 59.

    Raphael 2007, p 110.

  60. 60.

    Smith 1978, p 17.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., p 104.

  62. 62.

    Ibid., p 87.

  63. 63.

    While it might be presumed that civilians are less likely to commit war crimes, Noel Trew points out that the opposite can also be the case: Trew 2017, pp 124–125.

  64. 64.

    This account by an anonymous military lawyer is related by Luban 2013, p 315. The lawyer in question described the difference between the perspective of civilians and of military officers. Luban himself distinguishes the two camps by reference to their starting point: one “begins with armed conflict” assigning “military necessity […] axiomatic status” while the other “begins with humanitarianism” assigning “human dignity […] primary status”. Ibid., p 316. See also Benvenisti 2010, p 348.

  65. 65.

    United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, pp 1245–1246.

  66. 66.

    Notably, Rendulic himself observed that he found it particularly irritating that he was asked to justify his conduct during wartime before people who “by their own admission” had not “the slightest idea of war”, Rendulic 1965, p 444.

  67. 67.

    Henderson and Reece 2018, p 841. For similar interpretations of the report, see Holland 2004, pp 48–49; Groeben 2010, p 480.

  68. 68.

    ICTY Review Committee 2000, para 50.

  69. 69.

    Ibid.

  70. 70.

    Johansen 2019, p 86.

  71. 71.

    Dinstein 2011, p 488.

  72. 72.

    Ibid.

  73. 73.

    Ibid., p 484.

  74. 74.

    Ibid., p 488.

  75. 75.

    Ibid. See also Sloane 2015, p 319.

  76. 76.

    Dinstein 2011, p 488.

  77. 77.

    Ibid., p 486.

  78. 78.

    Ibid.

  79. 79.

    Ibid., p 484. For a sceptical view of such a portrayal of the enemy, see Noll 2012, pp 223, 225.

  80. 80.

    Dinstein 2011, p 485.

  81. 81.

    Ibid., p 488.

  82. 82.

    Ibid., p 489.

  83. 83.

    Ibid., p 493.

  84. 84.

    Newton 2007, p 900.

  85. 85.

    McLaughlin 2010, p 237. McLaughlin contrasts this understanding of the reasonable person’s identity with a narrower construction of the reasonable person as the reasonable military commander to which the “common law ‘reasonable person’ […] is irrelevant”, ibid., p 232.

  86. 86.

    O’Brien 1972, p 629. See also O’Brien 1957, p 55. Both times O’Brien attributes the term “reasonable colonel” to Ernst Feilchenfeld. Attempts to verify this attribution were unsuccessful. Paul Ramsey used the same expression (and also attributes it to Feilchenfeld), Johnson and Smith 1974, p 192.

  87. 87.

    Franck 2008, pp 737, 765.

  88. 88.

    Sloane 2015, pp 317–318.

  89. 89.

    Blank 2011, p 717.

  90. 90.

    Boothby 2012, p 190.

  91. 91.

    ICTY (Trial Chamber 1), Prosecutor v. Stanislav Galić, Judgment and Opinion, 5 December 2003, IT-98-29-T (2003), para 58.

  92. 92.

    Luban 2013, p 338.

  93. 93.

    Ibid.

  94. 94.

    Ibid.

  95. 95.

    Bothe 2002, p 184.

  96. 96.

    Bothe 2001, p 535.

  97. 97.

    Ibid.

  98. 98.

    Ibid.

  99. 99.

    Wall 2002b.

  100. 100.

    Wall 2002a, p 211.

  101. 101.

    Ibid.

  102. 102.

    Ibid., p 212.

  103. 103.

    Ibid.

  104. 104.

    Ibid.

  105. 105.

    Trew 2017, pp 122–123, 125–126. See also Olásolo 2008, pp 229–230.

  106. 106.

    Adams 2019, p 178.

  107. 107.

    See also Frazer 2010, p 142.

  108. 108.

    Sloane 2015, p 330.

  109. 109.

    Ibid., pp 328–329.

  110. 110.

    Noll 2012, pp 225–226. See also Traven 2021, p 274.

  111. 111.

    Noll 2012, pp 227–228.

  112. 112.

    Ibid., p 228. See also Chap. 11.

  113. 113.

    For the question of common sense in the context of war, see, for example, Lieblich and Benvenisti 2016, pp 253–254; Johansen 2019, pp 403–404.

  114. 114.

    Herrmann K (1944) Report from Evacuation Staff to 20th Mountain Army Concerning Evacuation of Northern Norway. Reproduced as document NOKW-090 by United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1950) Hostage Case, pp 1118–1123.

  115. 115.

    Ibid.

  116. 116.

    Galinsky et al. 2006, p 1069.

  117. 117.

    Hogeveen et al. 2014, p 759; Adams 2019, pp 168, 169.

  118. 118.

    Galinsky et al. 2006, p 1068.

  119. 119.

    Ibid., p 1072.

  120. 120.

    Ibid. The authors note that the lack of perspective-taking is not necessarily the result of a conscious decision but rather that power “makes perspective-taking less likely”.

  121. 121.

    Galinsky et al. 2006, pp 1069, 1072.

  122. 122.

    Hogeveen et al. 2014, p 760.

  123. 123.

    Galinsky et al. 2006, p 1072; Gruenfeld et al. 2008, p 124.

  124. 124.

    Robertson 2013, p 187.

  125. 125.

    Gruenfeld et al. 2008, p 127; Robertson 2013, p 187.

  126. 126.

    Galinsky et al. 2006, p 1070.

  127. 127.

    Ibid., p 1072; Robertson 2013, p 187. See also Adams 2019, p 152.

  128. 128.

    Keltner 2016, p 101.

  129. 129.

    Adams 2019, p 172.

  130. 130.

    Galinsky et al. 2016, p 92.

  131. 131.

    Frazer 2010, pp 53–54.

  132. 132.

    Hume 1889, p 383.

  133. 133.

    Keltner et al. 2003, p 265. The exact definition of the concept of power is disputed. For a similar though slightly different definition, see Galinsky et al. 2016, p 91.

  134. 134.

    Galinsky et al. 2006, p 1073. A similar argument had been advanced earlier by Marshall 1978, pp 160–161.

  135. 135.

    Adams 2019, p 170.

  136. 136.

    Ardant du Picq 1921, pp 45–46.

  137. 137.

    Marshall 1978.

  138. 138.

    Ibid., p 57.

  139. 139.

    Ibid., p 56.

  140. 140.

    Grossman 1996, pp 3–4.

  141. 141.

    Ibid., p 27.

  142. 142.

    Adams 2019, p 176.

  143. 143.

    Ardant du Picq 1921, p 110.

  144. 144.

    Gray 1999, p 178. See also Adams 2019, p 176.

  145. 145.

    Ardant du Picq 1921, p 112.

  146. 146.

    Strozzi-Heckler 2003, p 127. See also Grossman 1996, p 97.

  147. 147.

    Grossman 1996, p 121.

  148. 148.

    Ibid., pp 100–101.

  149. 149.

    Ibid.

  150. 150.

    Fromm 1973, p 123.

  151. 151.

    Ibid., p 121; Grossman 1996, pp 160, 161.

  152. 152.

    Fromm 1973, p 123.

  153. 153.

    For more examples, see Holmes 1989, p 364; Grossman 1996, p 92.

  154. 154.

    Ardant du Picq 1921, p 99.

  155. 155.

    Holmes 1989, p 364; Grossman 1996, p 92.

  156. 156.

    Holmes 1989, p 364; Grossman 1996, p 92.

  157. 157.

    Tōge 2012, pp 38–39.

  158. 158.

    Grossman 1996, p 20.

  159. 159.

    Marshall 1978, p 79.

  160. 160.

    Dyer 1985, p 118.

  161. 161.

    Ardant du Picq 1921, pp 111, 110.

  162. 162.

    Ibid., p 112.

  163. 163.

    Great General Staff of the German Army 1915, pp 71–72.

  164. 164.

    Ibid.

  165. 165.

    For a general overview of the manner in which Marshall’s studies influenced the US Army and of the most important criticisms of his theories, see Williams 1999, Chapters 4–5.

  166. 166.

    Grossman 1996, p 132.

  167. 167.

    Ibid., p 253.

  168. 168.

    Ibid., p 132.

  169. 169.

    Great General Staff of the German Army 1915, pp 71–72. See also Adams 2019, pp 175–176.

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  1. Faculty of Law, Lund University, 22100, Lund, Sweden

    Valentin Jeutner

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  1. Valentin Jeutner
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Correspondence to Valentin Jeutner .

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  1. Centre for International and Operational Law, Swedish Defence University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Nobuo Hayashi

  2. Faculty of Social Studies, VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway

    Carola Lingaas

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Jeutner, V. (2024). Empathy at War: The Distinction Between Reasonableness and the Reasonable Military Commander Standard. In: Hayashi, N., Lingaas, C. (eds) Honest Errors? Combat Decision-Making 75 Years After the Hostage Case. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-611-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-611-6_10

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