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 What's New? | Faculty in the News | News Archive | News Home
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May 2008 -- “The Continuing Role for Belligerent Reprisals,” an article by Philip Sutter ’07, will be published this spring in the Journal of Conflict and Security Law, a professor-run journal based in the United Kingdom. The article takes a new look at the doctrine of belligerent reprisals, a “final enforcement mechanism” used to prevent violations of the Geneva Conventions during wartime. The doctrine responds to unlawful wartime acts by one adversary against another by inflicting the same act upon the initial violators in an effort to convince them to cease the unlawful conduct. The doctrine has been harshly criticized as being ineffective and bloody, and having no place in the modern world. Its use has been significantly curtailed by the Geneva Conventions. However, Sutter argues, belligerent reprisals are lawful when dealing with detained unlawful combatants -- terrorists or guerrillas -- who fail to comply with the Geneva Conventions’ grounds for protection. The article states that not only are belligerent reprisals lawful and effective in preventing violations, but it is the duty of a combatant to enforce the law using all the lawful means at his disposal. A striking example of belligerent reprisals occurred during the Civil War, Sutter asserts, when Union soldiers hanged a band of seven Confederate soldiers. The Confederate commander Colonel John Mosby responded in kind by hanging seven Union soldiers. Mosby, a Virginia lawyer before the war, then composed a letter to Union General Sheridan, requesting that both sides treat prisoners humanely, stating “Hereafter, any prisoners falling into my hands will be treated with the kindness due their condition, unless some new act of barbarity shall compel me, reluctantly, to adopt a line of policy repugnant to humanity.” From then on, both sides in the war preserved the lives of prisoners. Despite the Confederate defeat, Mosby was never charged with war crimes perhaps, Sutter speculates, in recognition that he had acted lawfully. Sutter became interest in this topic in Law of War, a course taught by Professor Evan J. Wallach, judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade. The article earned him a CALI Award in the class. During law school, Sutter was executive articles editor of the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law and a research assistant for Professor Wallach. He participated in the BLS Mediation Clinic and interned at the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Department of Veterans Affairs. He was also a summer intern in Geneva, Switzerland at the law firm of Python, Schifferli, Peter & Partners. He received his B. A. at Emory University.
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