Military Government and Martial Law Distinguished

MILITARY GOVERNMENT: In the practice of the United States, military government is the form of administration which may be established and maintained for the government of areas of the following types that have been subjected to military occupation:

a. Enemy territory.

b. Allied territory recovered from enemy occupation, when that territory has not been made the subject of a civil affairs agreement (see par. 354).

c. Other territory liberated from the enemy, such as neutral territory and areas unlawfully incorporated by the enemy into its own territory, when that territory has not been made the subject of a civil affairs agreement.

d. Domestic territory recovered from rebels treated as belligerents.

Although military government is an accepted concept in the law of the United States, the limits placed upon its exercise are prescribed by the international law of belligerent occupation. Other countries exercise jurisdiction in occupied areas through types of administration analogous to military government even though they may be designated by other names.

MARTIAL LAW: In the United States, martial law is the temporary government of the civil population of domestic territory through the military forces, without the authority of written law, as necessity may require. The most prominent distinction between military government, as that term is used herein, and martial law is that the former is generally exercised in the territory of, or territory formerly occupied by, a hostile belligerent and is subject to restraints imposed by the international law of belligerent occupation, while the latter is invoked only in domestic territory, the local government and inhabitants of which are not treated or recognized as belligerents, and is governed solely by the domestic law of the United States.

So far as the United States forces are concerned, military government and martial law are exercised by the military commander under the direction of the President, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.