Francis Lieber

Francis Lieber (born Franz Lieber; 18 March 1798 – 2 October 1872) was a German and American jurist and political philosopher. He is best known for the Lieber Code, the first modern codification of the customary law and the laws of war for battlefield conduct, which served as a basis for the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and for the later Geneva Conventions. He was also a pioneer in the fields of law, political science, and sociology in the United States.

Quotes

Military necessity, as understood by modern civilized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of the war, and which are lawful according to the modern law and usages of war.
- Lieber Code (General Orders No. 100, April 24, 1863) sec. 1, art. 14

Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the Army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.
- Lieber Code, sec. 1, art. 15

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty – that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.
- Lieber Code, sec. 1, art. 16

The law of nations knows of no distinction of color, and if an enemy of the United States should enslave and sell any captured persons of their Army, it would be a case for the severest retaliation, if not redressed upon complaint.
- Lieber Code, sec. 3, art. 58