ELEMENT 2 Prove a Commander “Knew Or Should Have Known” That His Or Her Forces Were Committing Crimes Prove a commander “knew or should have known" that his or her forces were committing crimes. To prove this, investigators and lawyers look for what is called “notice evidence”. Below we will look at an example from the Central African Republic to better understand this principle. KEY DEFINITIONS Notice evidence is relevant and reliable information showing that a military, paramilitary or civilian commander received information that alerted them that their forces were committing crimes. ELEMENT 3 Prove a commander “failed to act” KEY PRINCIPLE To be held accountable, the third element a lawyer has to prove to show command or superior responsibility is that a remote commander “failed to act”. In other words, they failed to stop the people under their command from committing crimes. Let’s look at a simple everyday example to figure out what this means. Example: Good Boss v. Bad Boss If you are a commercial airline pilot, your boss is, in part, responsible for ensuring you receive training to fly, know and follow aviation protocols, and fly responsibly. Let’s say you are caught flying while drunk. Your boss is also responsible for disciplining you. If your boss purposefully turns a blind eye to your illegal behavior and continues to allow you to fly while drunk, your boss could also be held accountable for any damage you cause by crashing the plane while drinking because he or she has “failed to take action” to stop your wrong doing. It’s the same for military, paramilitary and civilian commanders. Commanders are responsible to train, supervise and discipline their troops or the people they have authority over. If these people commit crimes on the frontlines, they know or should have known about these crimes, and then fail to stop their people, then these commanders “failed to act”. Simple as that. The question then becomes how could you capture the lack of action on video. Seems impossible right? Let’s look at a Field Note to see what you could point your camera towards. 124 VIDEO AS EVIDENCE: PROVING RESPONSIBILITY V 1.0 FILMING KEY PRINCIPLE