The Genesis and Significance of the Law of War “Rendulic Rule”

The notion that in armed conflict commanders are judged only according to information reasonably available to them at the time of decision-making found early and notorious application in the post-Second World War prosecution of Generaloberst Lothar Rendulic known as the Hostage case. A tribunal of American judges drawn from civilian US legal quarters famously acquitted Rendulic for devastation carried out in the erroneous belief that Soviet forces were pursuing his retreat across Norwegian Finnmark. This chapter traces the legal genesis of the so-called Rendulic Rule and evaluates its modern legal significance. Although the Hostage judgment provided little in the way of legal evidence of the rule and traced its source in only very general terms, the Rendulic Rule has since matured into a well-settled aspect of the law of war. States have incorporated it into primary rules of conduct regulating hostilities and rely on it extensively in law of war instruction and implementation.