Your fact-checks will appear here
1968 U.S. war crime during the Vietnam War
The UCMJ imposes a duty to obey lawful orders and makes disobedience punishable under Article 92, but American military law and international precedent reject obedience as a blanket defense when an or...
Courts have treated a “patently illegal” military order as a narrow exception to the ordinary presumption that orders are lawful: it is an order whose criminality is so plain that “a person of ordinar...
Historical precedent shows that U.S. service members have both been prosecuted and, in other cases, acquitted or excused when they followed superior orders later judged unlawful; the key legal touchst...
Service members are legally required to obey lawful orders and to refuse patently unlawful ones; Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Manual for Courts‑Martial frame that ...
There are multiple post‑2001 instances where U.S. service members were prosecuted or investigated for actions taken while claiming they followed orders (notably Abu Ghraib prosecutions and My Lai is e...
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) spells out the primary criminal provisions that govern obedience and disobedience: Article 92 (failure to obey order or regulation) and Article 90 (willful ...
Courts‑martial have long rejected blanket immunity for "I was following orders," instead treating obedience to superior orders as a constrained defense: lawful orders must be followed, but manifestly ...
When a service member suspects an order is unlawful, the Manual for Courts‑Martial (MCM) frames the legal test and procedures that govern response: an order is presumed lawful unless it conflicts with...
Unlawful military orders are legally defined as directives that require commission of a criminal act, violate the Constitution, U.S. law, or international law; historical touchstones include the My La...
Vietnam-era abuses (notably My Lai) and the later Abu Ghraib scandal became focal points in debates over when service members may refuse unlawful orders; reporting and official reviews tied Abu Ghraib...
Historical prosecutions for following orders reach back at least to the Nuremberg trials, which established that “just following orders” does not excuse war crimes . U.S. cases such as Lt. William Cal...
There is widespread reporting and legal commentary that U.S. military law requires service members to refuse “patently unlawful” orders and that following illegal orders can expose troops to prosecuti...
The Calley rulings applied a two-part test: an unlawful order can excuse a subordinate only if the accused did not actually know the order was unlawful and a “man of ordinary sense and understanding” ...
Historical U.S. prosecutions for following or issuing unlawful orders include high-profile cases such as Lt. William L. Calley Jr. (My Lai), which set a precedent that “just following orders” is not a...
Military law presumes orders are lawful unless they violate the U.S. Constitution, federal law, lawful superior orders, or exceed the issuer’s authority; a military judge decides lawfulness as a quest...
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 Na...
After the Nuremberg trials the U.S. military and legal community rejected “just following orders” as an absolute defense for war crimes and taught that service members have a duty to refuse manifestly...
The law requires service members to obey lawful orders but not manifestly illegal ones; courts and military practice set a high bar for what counts as “manifestly illegal,” and refusing such an order ...
There are historically notable examples where following or refusing orders affected outcomes: Lieutenant William Calley was convicted for carrying out orders at My Lai, illustrating that obeying manif...
Rules of engagement (ROE) and international humanitarian law (IHL) shape when an order is legally binding and when subordinates may be required to refuse it: U.S. military doctrine and the DoD Law of ...