Duhaime's Military Law Dictionary

Attention! You will pay read and learn the law of the military by considering all these fine terms presented by Duhaime's Military Law Dictionary. We shall never surrender!

Aggression

Unjustified use of force against the territorial integrity of another state.

Alliance

A military treaty between two or more states, providing for a mutually-planned offensive, or for assistance in the case of attack on any member.

al Qaeda

A terrorist organization, nominally Islamic, and originally based in Afghanistan.

Angary

The right of a state at war, in circumstances of necessity, to seize or destroy property belonging to a neutral state.

Assassination

The targeted, covert killing of an individual without legal process and usually for reasons of, though not necessarily limited to, political or military expediency.

Bioterrorism

The release of an infectious agent to cause illness or death against a civilian population.

Capitulation

Abandonment by one belligerent to another, of a defined place, usually by way of a negotiated arrangement.

Civil War

Armed conflict by identifiable faction(s) within a nation which threatens or has broken down an existing government, law and order.

Conscientious Objector

Someone with a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason or religious, moral or ethical training and belief.

Conscription

Compulsory military service.

Coup d'etat

French: an often violent, always sudden and unlawful replacement of an existing government.

Court Martial

A military court set up to try and punish offenses taken by members of the army, navy or air force.

Crimes Against Humanity

An international criminal justice offence; the perpetration of acts of war upon a civilian, non-soldier population.

Declaration of War

An explicit warning from one state to another, in the form either of a reasoned intent to commence hostilities or of an ultimatum which carries the same result.

Disrate

A term of maritime law where an officer or other seaman is either demoted in rank or deprived of a promotion.

Enemy Combatant

A term of American anti-terrorism law, referring to the theoretically temporary status of an accused during which he or she is detained without charges, judicial review (habeas corpus) or access to an attorney.

Espionage

The practice of playing the spy, or of employing spies.

FISA Order

(USA) A court order approving electronic surveillance or a search of a target suspected of acting on behalf of a foreign power or terrorist organization.

Genocide

Systematic killing of persons because of their ethnicity.

Hazing

Unofficial punishment administered by peers.

Hors de combat

French: outside of combat. A civilian or a soldier who has relinquished or been extricated from combat status.

Hostis Humani Generis

Latin: the enemy of mankind.

In Terrorem

Latin: in terror, fright, threat or warning.

Jus Ad Bellum

Latin: the legal authority to wage war.

Lieber Code

The 1863 military code of conduct written by Francis Lieber at the request of US President Abraham Lincoln.

Martial Law

The suspension of regular government and habeas corpus or the reliance of military law enforcement.

Nazism

An aggressive political and militaristic form of government including the use of international deceit and expansionism, the arbitrary suspension of the rule of law, and arbitrary eugenics or genocide.

Neutrality

A state's declared impartiality and non-interference in the declared or de facto war of other states.

Perfidy

The intentional violation of a promise or of some trust, such as misusing a flag of truce during war in order to facilitate an attack.

Posse Comitatus

The emergency roundup of a group of civilians or soldiers to address a significant civil law enforcement crisis.

Prisoner of War

A member of the enemy's armed forces, or attached to the hostile army for active aid, who has fallen into the hands of the captor, either fighting or wounded, on the field or in the hospital, by individual surrender or by capitulation.

Prize

Property taken at sea from an enemy.

Prize Court

Courts instituted for the purpose of trying judicially the lawfulness of captures at sea.

Prize Law

Rules of international law under which in war conditions, property and vessels, including transport ships, and their cargoes, may be seized.

Quam legem exteri nobis posuere, eandem illis ponemus

Latin: What law is imposed by foreign powers on our merchants, we will impose on their's.

Revolution

Rebellion, often by organized military action, but always with the support of a significant proportion of the population, aimed at the replacement of an existing government.

Spy / Spies

A person who acts clandestinely or on false pretenses to endeavour to obtain information of or within another state with the intention of communicating or selling it to others.

Surrender

A declaration of an overpowered belligerent that it is ceasing hostilities.

Sutler

A civilian merchant assigned to an army in the field to provision soldiers with consumer goods.

Terrorism

Violence against civilians intended to intimidate a population or a government from taking or abstaining from an act.

Unlawful Combatant

A combatant who does not act under orders or with a distinctive uniform and conceals arms and otherwise ignores the laws and customs of war.

War

The use of violence and force between two or more states to resolve a matter of dispute.

War Crimes

Excessive brutality during war, in contravention of an international treaty or convention.

War Treason

Acts committed within the lines of a belligerent as are harmful to him and are intended to favour the enemy.

Weapon of Mass Destruction

Device designed to kill humans through the use of atomic or nuclear energy or the release of chemicals, poisons, biological agents or radioactivity.