Moral responsibility is all very well, but what about military orders？ Is it not the soldi
er's duty to give instant obedience to orders given by his military superiors？ And apart from duty, will not the soldier suffer severe punishment, even death, if he refuses to do what he is ordered to？ If, then, a soldier is told by his superior to burn this house or to shoot that prisoner, how can he be held criminally accountable on the ground' that the burning or shooting was a violation of the laws of war？
These are some of the questions that are raised by the concept commonly called "superior orders", and its use as a defense in war crimes trials. It is an issue that must be as old as the laws of war themselves, and it emerged in legal guise over three centuries ago when, after the Stuart restoration in 1660, the commander of the guards at the trial and execution of Charles I was put on trial for treason and murder. The officer defended himself on the ground "that all I did was as a soldier, by the command of my superior officer whom I must obey or die," but the court gave him short shrift, saying that "When the command is traitorous, then the obedience to that command is also traitorous①."
Though not precisely articulated, the rule that is necessarily implied by this decision is that it is the soldier's duty to obey lawful orders, but that he may disobey—and indeed must, under some circum stances-unlawful orders. Such has been the law of the United States since the birth of the nation. In 1804, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that superior orders would justify a subordinate's conduct only "if not to perform. a prohibited act," and there are many other early decisions to the same effect.
A strikingly illustrative case occurred in the wake of that conflict which most Englishmen have never heard (although their troops burned the White House) and which we call the War of 1812. Our country was baldly split by that war too and, at a time when the United States Navy was not especially popular in New England, the ship-in-the-line Independence was lying in Boston Harbor. A passer-by directed abusive language at a marine standing guard on the ship, and the marine, Bevans by name, ran his bayonet through the man. Charged with murder, Bevans produced evidence that the marines on the Independence had been ordered to bayonet anyone showing them disrespect. The case was tried before Justice Joseph Story, next to Marshall, the leading judicial figure of those years, who charged that any such order as Bevans had invoked "would be illegal and void," and, if given and put into practice, both the superior and the subordinate would be guilty of murder②. In consequence, Bevans was convicted.
The order allegedly given to Bevans was pretty drastic, and Boston Harbor was not a battlefield; per haps it was not too much to expect the marine to realize that literal compliance might lead to bad trouble. But it is only too easy to conceive of circumstances where the matter might not be at all clear. Does the sub ordinate obey at peril that the order may later be ruled illegal, or is protected unless he has a good reason to doubt its validity？
It can be inferred from the first paragraph that if a soldier obeys his superior's order to burn a house or to kill a prisoner, ______.
A．he is fight according to moral standards
B．he should not receive any punishment
C．he should certainly be liable for his action
D．he will be convicted according to the law of war
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