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Which landmark cases involved refusal of unlawful orders and their verdicts (e.g., My Lai, Nuremberg, Hamdan)?
Executive summary
Three well-known episodes illustrate the legal and moral debate over “refusal of unlawful orders”: the Nuremberg Trials rejected the superior‑orders defense and produced verdicts punishing many top Nazis (12 death sentences among principal defendants; verdicts handed down Oct. 1, 1946) [1] [2]. The My Lai prosecutions in the U.S. applied military law domestically—Lieutenant William Calley was court‑martialed for killings after claiming he followed orders, while some commanders were acquitted amid controversy over command responsibility [3] [4]. Modern U.S. military guidance and public discussion again stress a duty to refuse illegal orders, as reflected in recent FAQs and lawmakers’ public appeals [5] [6].
1. Nuremberg: a legal pivot that rejected “just following orders”
The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg established a foundational rule: acting under orders was not an absolute shield from responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity; the tribunal’s verdicts—handed down on October 1, 1946—found most of the principal defendants guilty and imposed severe penalties, including numerous death sentences and long imprisonments [1] [2] [7]. Contemporary accounts and legal scholarship treat Nuremberg as the moment the international community clarified that individuals can be held criminally liable even when acting on state or superior direction [8] [9].
2. My Lai: American courts wrestling with obedience and command responsibility
The My Lai massacre prosecutions in the early 1970s became the U.S. study in how military law confronts unlawful orders. Prosecutors and commentators used Nuremberg‑era principles when addressing whether subordinates could be excused for following illegal commands; Lieutenant Calley’s defense invoked reliance on orders but the court‑martial convicted him (later subject to sentence reduction and parole controversy), while higher officers, including Captain Ernest Medina, faced trials with mixed outcomes and debate over standards for command culpability [3] [4] [10]. Legal literature arising from My Lai emphasizes tensions between obedience, training, and the obligation to refuse manifestly illegal orders [3].
3. How verdicts and doctrine differ: international tribunals vs. domestic courts
Nuremberg was an allied international tribunal trying top state actors under novel charters; its rulings created principles subsequently influential in international criminal law (no blanket immunity for following orders) [8] [1]. By contrast, My Lai was prosecuted under the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice and domestic courts‑martial, illustrating how a single nation translates international principles into military criminal prosecutions—with different evidentiary and doctrinal challenges about what a subordinate could reasonably have known or disobeyed [3] [11]. Available sources do not provide a single unified test that courts always apply across contexts; rather, precedents and procedures vary by forum [8] [3].
4. Hamdan and modern adjudication of unlawful orders—what sources say
Your query named Hamdan as an example; available sources in the current set do not mention the Hamdan decision or its verdicts, so I cannot summarize it from these materials. If you want Hamdan (the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision concerning military commissions and detention law) analyzed alongside Nuremberg and My Lai, provide sources or ask me to pull public reporting that includes Hamdan and I will incorporate it—current reporting here does not include Hamdan (not found in current reporting).
5. Contemporary doctrine and political debate: duty to refuse illegal orders resurfacing
Recent materials show renewed public and legal attention to the obligation to refuse unlawful orders. A November 2025 FAQ from the Military Law Task Force reiterates that servicemembers “have the right, and in some cases the duty, to refuse illegal orders,” and points to prior cases (including Calley/My Lai) to illustrate what “patently illegal” orders look like—orders to commit atrocities [5]. Lawmakers and commentators have also publicly urged troops to disobey illegal commands in recent media and videos, reflecting both legal duty and political advocacy [6].
6. Competing perspectives and lingering controversies
Sources show two competing tensions: one strand treats Nuremberg’s rejection of the orders defense as a necessary bulwark against atrocities [8], while another—visible in post‑My Lai debates—warns that ambiguous standards, inadequate training, or chaotic combat conditions complicate a soldier’s ability to identify and refuse illegal orders [3] [4]. Political actors sometimes frame appeals to disobey unlawful orders as corrective and constitutional [6], but others caution about operational confusion and the burden placed on lower‑rank personnel [12]. Those disagreements are explicit in the legal literature and public commentary represented in the current sources [12] [3].
7. What this means for someone asking about “landmark cases”
Nuremberg and My Lai are rightly treated as landmark touchstones illustrating the principle that following orders is not an automatic defense; Nuremberg set the international baseline, and My Lai tested application within U.S. military law [1] [3]. Contemporary FAQs and public messages make clear the doctrine persists and that modern military law instructs service members to refuse manifestly illegal orders—especially orders to commit atrocities—though application in particular cases remains fact‑dependent and contested [5] [6].
If you want, I can expand this into a side‑by‑side chart of the cases (charges, defenses, verdicts, legal standards used) using only the sources above, or add Hamdan and other cases if you provide or permit additional sources.