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Search: drones

30 Jan

...damage claims related to the foreign activities of multinational companies. Niger has given permission for U.S. surveillance drones to be stationed on its territory to improve intelligence on al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters in northern Mali and the wider Sahara. An Egyptian court upheld the in absentia death sentences of seven Coptic Christians and an American preacher on charges stemming from the amateur anti-Muslim film Innocence of Muslims, which sparked violent protests in the Middle East last year Israel will give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s administration around $100 million in tax...
30.01.13 | |

22 Dec

...Donors to their own Donors, reducing their own net aid intake. They explained their counterproductive behavior with non-standard concepts such as “Tis more bless’d to give than to receive.” There were aspects unaccountably unaddressed by the evaluation – principally the role of behavioral incentives, in the form of surveillance by drones by which to make up “naughty” and “nice” lists. I can only add that since Amazon has taken over the whole program under contract to the United Nations Development Program, it is all anticipated to work much more smoothly....
22.12.11 | |

14 May

...case information sheet here). He is faced with charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. American drones have allegedly killed 10 militants in Yemen, in a stepped-up effort to get a strangle hold on AQAP. Foreign Policy explores some of the potential dangers in for this move. Through an exchange of letters, Israel and Palestine have made a rare joint statement that both parties are “committed to peace.” Various subgroups of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are meeting in Bonn from...
14.05.12 | |

25 Mar

...— this was an enormously positive step. Second, on the substance. On first read, I think this is a great statement. It addresses an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces. But it also asserts self-defense several times as an alternative. I had been greatly concerned, frankly, that the administration’s lawyers would narrowly confine the justification for targeted killing using drones to situations that would really only cover the military using them on active battlefields. But on first read, this statement does not do that at all....
25.03.10 | |

15 Oct

I am currently underwater with some things and won’t be posting much, despite my interest in the debates over drones, targeted killing, and much else besides. However, I wanted to suggest that, for those trying to make sense of US actions in AfPak – including the overt strikes by NATO against safe havens in Pakistan, the sharply increased public pressure by the US on the Pakistan government to take action against these safe havens, the unapologetic defense of targeted killing even of US citizens in places like Yemen or Somalia...
15.10.10 | |

06 Feb

...law. Under international law, the main question is whether there is legal authority to kill or assassinate anyone, much less one’s own nationals. But even under international law, as readers of Ken Anderson’s posts here and at Volokh know, it is still not all that clear. Indeed, there seems a more than plausible argument that certain kinds of assassinations, as currently executed by the Predator drones, could indeed constitute a violation of the law of war. In any event, if the U.S. is going to pursue this policy, it should...
06.02.10 | |

15 Jun

...West shouldn’t expect Russia to change its position on Syria any time soon. The UK has warned Argentina about acts of “aggression” regarding the Falkland Islands. The British Finance Minister has stated that Greece may have to leave the Euro. The Prosecutor of the ICC has filed a new application to arrest a Rwandan field commander, Sylvestre Mucadumura. Venezuela claims to be building drones with the help of Iran. Germany and France are set to deepen their defense cooperation. The OSCE has criticized the recent violence between Azerbaijan and Armenia....
15.06.12 | |

05 Jun

...civilian contractors to perform various logistics and combat support functions in the theater of operations, from arming and maintaining drones to feeding and housing troops to protecting civilian government officials. Although it once performed these functions (almost exclusively) with members of the armed forces, to my knowledge it considers most if not all of these individuals to be civilians (some of which may take a direct part in hostilities), not belligerents. Under Colonel Maxwell’s proposal, most if not all could be targeted as belligerents if supporting non-state organized armed group...
05.06.12 | |

16 Apr

...unconstrained (by lack of personal risk to one’s forces because of drones and lowered civilian harm because of improved targerting) to resort to force. This paper evaluates this claim, and more broadly the idea that jus in bello proportionality and jus ad bellum resort to force can each have a form of “efficiency.” It rejects the claim as incoherent, because the existence of “sides” in conflict results in incommensurable meanings of winning and losing in jus ad bellum, without which there cannot be an “optimal” level of the resort to...
16.04.11 | |

04 Jun

...intelligence community, though I disagree with his take on drones) has a very interesting column on the issuance of a series of executive orders on the linkages between them. One consequence of the early “war on terror” years was that the lines between CIA and military activities got blurred. The Pentagon moved into clandestine areas that had traditionally been the province of the CIA. Special Forces began operating secretly abroad in ways that worried the CIA, the State Department and foreign governments. The Obama administration is finishing an effort to...
04.06.11 | |

30 Jun

...International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at IDC, the Institute for National Security and Counter-Terrorism at Syracuse University, and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. It will begin today with a keynote speech by Israel’s Deputy Attorney General Shai Nitzan and a dinner, followed by two days of panels on topics including the rule of law, maritime security, cyber-warfare, drones, and the role of courts in balancing law and security. More information is here. Last week’s post can be found here. If you would like to post an announcement on Opinio Juris, please contact...
30.06.13 | |

14 Jun

...a unanimous resolution on Yemen calling for an end to violence from both sides. A defense lawyer for one of the suspects before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up in The Hague to investigate the death of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, claims that the tribunal has a political agenda and should therefore not conduct the trial. Salon has posted a piece demonstrating the global unpopularity of the US’ use of drones. A Tunisian court has sentenced former President, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to 20 years in prison. As...
14.06.12 | |