# Criminal orders: the limits of obedience and the roles of ordering, relaying and carrying out

Ordering, relaying a demand and carrying it out involve different actions. This article distinguishes content, knowledge, duress and bounded international legal references. Conscience, legal assessment and actual safety of refusal are not counted as one result.

## For whom

For a service member, civilian worker alongside an armed structure, messenger, relative or helper seeking to understand an order and personal role without a ready verdict or promised safe refusal.

## Questions

- Is there a legal limit to obeying a manifestly unlawful order?
- Does a conflict of conscience establish a crime?
- Are ordering, relaying and carrying out the same acts?
- Does fear automatically establish legal duress?
- Does a conversation with a helper mean protection received?

## Boundary

This article determines neither guilt, jurisdiction, combatant status, personal duties nor a particular refusal’s legality; international examples replace no applicable domestic law. It supplies no combat instructions, sabotage, escape, dangerous tests, independent investigation, unauthorised access, destroyed or altered information or coordinated accounts. Safe refusal, pausing, publicity and reporting, a recipient’s independence and competence, absolute confidentiality and freedom from responsibility are not promised. Under immediate threat, available protection takes priority over the exercise.

## Version

catalog_id: SYS-202
language: en
revision: 1
master_filename: ARTICLE_EN.md
master_sha256: 812568764f7acbfda186606b561280e8e2831af8bf2b0b500c7659891ad0e1c7