Volume 15, Number 1 · July 2, 1970
Corporate Responsibility for War Crimes
By George Wald
After World War II, our government took the lead in establishing in international law the concepts of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, embodied in the Nuremberg Principles. Some of the uses of napalm and herbicides in Vietnam seem to fit the definitions of such crimes. The Nuremberg Principles state specifically that acting under orders does not relieve those taking part in such crimes of individual responsibility. If that is true of military orders, which would have to be refused under all the stresses of military discipline and combat, how much more should it be true of business orders? If a soldier must accept individual responsibility for his part in a war crime in spite of being ordered to commit it, how much more heavy the responsibility of an industrial concern, for whom an order represents only an opportunity for profit?
Feature, 3854 words
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