Patriotism and the Lord of the Rings

[William Cloud Hicklin]

since ethics and morality should always trump "My country right or wrong".

That's really a very modern notion, and fairly American, or at least a reflection of American thinking's influence on the world. The old paradigm, which certainly dominated the aristocratic Junker officer corps, was indeed mein Kaiser/Vaterland/Fuehrer, richtig oder falsch. The idea of disobeying an order just because you personally disagreed with it (for any reason) was utterly alien- as indeed it would have been to Napoleon's marechals or Marlborough's subordinates. It's fairly hard today to grasp the extent to which the Subject's Duty of Obedience was the assumed basis of political thinking in former times.

Even under the original Hague Convention of 1899, the first attempt to create or at least codify a Law of Armed Conflict, responsibility for a war crime fell entirely on the authority who ordered it: his subordinates could not be held culpable for obeying the order. In the Neumann Trial (1922) the Leipzig Supreme Court explicitly ruled that Befehl ist Befehl was a complete defense. (The Nuremburg Tribunals may have advanced 'human rights,' but as courts of law they were pretty much kangaroo courts).

[Aiwendil]

William Cloud Hicklin wrote:

That's really a very modern notion, and fairly American, or at least a reflection of American thinking's influence on the world.

I agree that as stated this is a fairly modern idea (modern in the broad post-1500 or so sense). But I don't agree that it's fundamentally American. On the contrary, the idea of a 'higher law' that takes precedence over loyalty to a particular government - or even a particular nation - is fundamental to a lot of Enlightenment-era thinking. It's fairly clearly expressed in Locke and Rousseau, for instance, and one can perhaps find its roots in Hobbes. Indeed, I think one could argue that its ultimate roots are found in Plato and Aristotle.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Actually, I meant 'modern' in a post-WWII sense. While one can trace the history of the notion to the enlightenment philosophers, and their practical students the American revolutionists, as a matter of recognized law I can't find a trace of it prior to the London Declaration (1944). The top Nazis deserved everything they got; but the technical basis for stringing them up was a blatant ex post facto exercise in retroactive law.

[Aiwendil]

All right, but surely there's a difference between a notion's existence or even prevalence and its codification in international law.