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Search: drones

04 Jul

...“to control access to its airspace,” Deeks and Anderson argue that “there is no black letter law on the question” of whether states may shoot down drones or other aircraft that enter their airspace without consent. Instead, they base their conclusion on examples of state practice that confirm that it is “lawful for a territorial state to shoot down a drone that enters its airspace.” In an equally insightful piece on Just Security, Michael Schmitt discussed the legality of both Iran’s actions and the possible American responses. Schmitt argued that...
04.07.19 | |

24 Feb

...uncontested information demonstrates that drone strikes in Pakistan are now launched exclusively from either Jalalabad Air Base and/or Kandahar Airbase in Afghanistan, which has been a State Party to the Rome Statute since 10 February 2003 . Until 2011, the drones carrying out the strikes in Pakistan were launched from both Jalalabad Air Base in Afghanistan and Shamsi Air Base in Pakistan. US Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel on the ground in both of these locations would handle the launch and recovery phase of the drone’s flight...
24.02.14 | |

23 Jan

...according to tribal sources and local officials, the fourth such attack in four days. A Yemeni cabinet minister criticized the use of pilotless U.S. drones against suspected al Qaeda militants, a tactic that has outraged communities in targeted areas, and urged a move to ground operations to avoid hurting civilians. Additionally, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister has come out in protest against US drone strikes, stating that the strikes are a violation of Pakistani sovereignty and international law. The use of drones is also creating a growing controversy in the United States....
23.01.13 | |

27 Feb

The European Parliament has just overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the use of armed drones. I’ll leave it to others to do the hard work of analyzing the resolution, but I couldn’t let this paragraph pass without a mention (emphasis mine): E. whereas drone strikes outside a declared war by a state on the territory of another state without the consent of the latter or of the UN Security Council constitute a violation of international law and of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of that country. The last time a...
27.02.14 | |

04 Nov

...program would destabilize the Pakistani government itself. Some people questioned whether, given the killing of Bin Laden, whether the whole program could be scaled back or even ended. These concerns resulted in a high level review of the two drone programs conducted by the CIA in Pakistan. Notably, the administration remains as firmly and strongly committed to drones and targeted killing as key elements in national counterterrorism policy as it has ever been, if not more so — in Pakistan and elsewhere. Moreover, although greater mechanisms of consultation have been...
04.11.11 | |

05 Jul

...Guantanamo has and will continue to result in the need to send detainees to countries with far less humane facilities. Critics from the right, like Jack Goldsmith, suggest that the need to use prisons in Somalia and other countries to detain suspected terrorists means there probably is a policy tradeoff between using drones (Obama’s preferred approach) vs. detentions (Bush). This is likely to eventually evolve into a Romney talking point, even though it will likely be small one and unimportant one. As Jamie Kirchick points out here, the real political...
05.07.12 | |

06 Jun

In various posts on OJ about Predator drones, targeted killing, and such topics, I’ve made reference to a book chapter I’ve been drafting for Benjamin Wittes’s forthcoming edited volume of policy essays, Legislating the War on Terror: An Agenda for Reform (Brookings Institution Press 2009). I’m pleased to say that my chapter, Targeted Killing in US Counterterrorism Strategy and Law, has been posted up at the Brookings site, as a working paper along with the other working papers that come out in the book. Shameless self promotion; apologies – but...
06.06.09 | |

06 Nov

...relevant practice and opinio juris on this matter. In any event, there is not "admirable" and "stong" legal argument in the reports with respect to proper tests under human rights law (e.g., "effective control" and "arbitrary" killing) and there is inadequate attention to the law of self-defense. Jordan Regarding proper tests under human rights law and the AI Report, see http://jurist.org/forum/2013/10/jordan-paust-drones-justification.php HRW emphasizes the wrong human rights test as well (in its report on pages 83, 86-87) and pays no attention to the law of self-defense and permissible targeting or...
06.11.13 | |

23 Oct

...Qaeda. Jordan p.s. does any al Qaeda "affiliate" "belong to" a Party to an international armed conflict? Does al Qaeda "belong to" a state? Has al Qaeda ever complied with the rest of Article 4(A)(2) of GPW (e.g., "being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates," "carrying arms openly," "conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war")? Jordan RELATED: new op ed at Jurist re: why Amnesty International's new Report on Drone Targetings used the wrong legal standards, see http://jurist.org/forum/2013/10/jordan-paust-drones-justifications.php enjoy! Jordan sorry, try: http://jurist.org/forum/2013/10/jordan-paust-drones-justification.php...
23.10.13 | |

10 Jun

...unable doctrine - that is, why could it not claim that it's not yet a settled part of international law and therefore does not justify drone strikes against its citizens/property in any event? This argument would certainly put the U.S. in a difficult position and one which the Pakistani government could credibly make. Based on this argument, it could arguably even shoot down a U.S. drone as a measure of legal self-defense, as I have written in FP. http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/08/can_pakistan_legally_shoot_down_us_drones - would you say Pakistan would be behaving illegally here? To...
10.06.13 | |

09 Apr

Jordan Response... Yet, my draft article addresses some of her claims and demonstrates why some of Mary Ellen's claims are not based in general patterns of practice and patterns of generally shared legal expectation about such practice, and so forth. There are some points of agreement as well, esp. re: who should be flying the drones. Please see http://ssrn.com/abstract=1520717 JJ Paust Howard Gilbert There is no rule about "battlefields". No such rule has ever existed or been imagined in any previous war. When Pettigrew's North Carolinians went looking for shoes...
09.04.10 | |

07 Apr

...his omissions in their law review articles – check on Westlaw. Brian Chang I agree with KJH that the NYU petition is disappointing, especially in light of Harold Koh's record in government, an extensive evaluation of which is available here: http://justsecurity.org/21912/harold-koh-nyu-asil-2010-speech-advancing-human-rights/ On the issue of drones in particular, Harold was not just instrumental in advocating for the drones programme to be compliant with international law as he saw it, but also played a key role in ensuring that the legal basis of the programme was publicly articulated, so that it...
07.04.15 | |