Related Rule
South Africa
Practice Relating to Rule 152. Command Responsibility for Orders to Commit War Crimes
South Africa’s LOAC Manual (1996) provides: “Signatory States are required to treat as criminals under domestic law anyone who commits or orders a grave breach.”
South Africa, Presentation on the South African Approach to International Humanitarian Law, Appendix A, Chapter 4: International Humanitarian Law (The Law of Armed Conflict), National Defence Force, 1996, § 35.
The manual further states: “An order to commit a war crime is an unlawful order … The person giving such an order would also be guilty of a war crime.”
South Africa, Presentation on the South African Approach to International Humanitarian Law, Appendix A, Chapter 4: International Humanitarian Law (The Law of Armed Conflict), National Defence Force, 1996, § 44.
South Africa’s Prevention and Combating of Torture of Persons Act (2013) states:
Offences and penalties
4. (1) Any person who –
…
(c) incites, instigates, commands or procures any person to commit torture,
is guilty of the offence of torture and is on conviction liable to imprisonment, including imprisonment for life.
…
(4) No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, including but not limited to, a state of war, threat of war, internal political instability, national security or any state of emergency may be invoked as a justification for torture.
South Africa, Prevention and Combating of Torture of Persons Act, 2013, Section 4(1)(c) and (4).
