Law at a Critical Juncture: The US Army’s Command Responsibility Trials at Manila, 1945-1947

The US Army’s war crimes trials of the hundreds of Japanese military personnel tried at Manila from 1945 to 1947 represent an opportunity to gain valuable insights into Allied ‘justice’ at a time when many aspects of war crimes jurisprudence were at a formative stage. Specifically, the Manila trials offer a unique portal into the jurisprudence of the doctrine of command responsibility. The ‘command responsibility trials’ at Manila, as they became known, are important for understanding the jurisprudential path to finding superiors criminally responsible for the criminal acts of their subordinates. This paper examines five trials from the US Army’s Manila trials in relation to the doctrine of command responsibility and in so doing, shows how the Manila trials significantly contributed to the development of the very important doctrine known as command responsibility.