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...of targeted killing and drone warfare, let me point readers to a conference at University of Pennsylvania Law School this weekend, a joint effort among lawyers, philosophers, diplomats, and national security and military personnel. It’s an impressive lineup – including Deborah Pearlstein and John Dehn – and you can even get CLE credit, I believe. (I’ve put the announcement below the fold.) I’ll be talking at the Penn conference about an ethical tension between jus in bello and jus ad bellum. Targeted killing through drones results (I will take by...

...in today’s presidential election. A UN senior official has addressed sexual violence issues in Cambodia and Kenya. Human Rights Watch has called for an end to the violence in Bangladesh in light of the recent sentencing of opposition leader Jamaat-e-Islaami. Jurist has more here. Foreign Policy recently carried out a survey of 70 experts about global conflicts; an analysis of the results can be found here. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported last week that UK terror suspects are being stripped of their citizenship before being killed by US drones....

...peace and justice, values that were at heart of Mr Weinrebe’s humanitarian activities. In his keynote lecture, Ben Emmerson, UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights and renowned barrister will focus on pressing issues at the intersection of peace and justice including: mass digital surveillance in the global age, the use of drones in the fight against international terrorism, the rights of victims of terrorism and areas of good practice in the fight against terrorism. Opening Remarks will be given by Professor Robert McCorquodale (Director, BIICL) and the lecture...

...to “enable improved techniques for rapidly discriminating hostile intent and filtering out threats in complex urban environments”.  In other words, the DoD is “developing a program of high-tech cameras mounted on drones and other robots that monitor cities, which enable identification and discrimination between civilians and terrorists through machine learning computers.” In this second example too, one can observe the importance of identifying patterns of conduct, especially in urban contexts, to separate civilians from combatants. However, while in the SKYNET programme AI is aimed at a very specific task (rating...

...to say about the crisis of today and its long term implications for governance. Note to young and aspiring scholars: The national security-terrorism decade is over in international law, transborder law, and domestic constitutionalism, even if there are many dangling issues that haven’t been worked out, such as the scope of covert action, drones, targeted killing, trying terrorists, detention, etc. The 90s were liberal internationalism; the 00s were non-state actor terrorism and state counterterrorism. Like it or not, questions answered or not, events have moved on. It is now the...

This week on Opinio Juris, Chris Borgen posted about Peter Watts’ short story on the legal and ethical questions relating to the use of autonomous aerial combat drones; Julian Ku shared Cato Institute’s Walter Olson’s observations on the revolving door between the UN and the US legal academy; Kevin Heller gave an account of his PhD viva at Leiden; and Roger Alford made us guess which six countries were the focus of the AP Comparative Government this week. Peter Spiro continued last week’s discussion on US taxation of US expats...

...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...

...laws governing the resort to, and use of, armed force. The chapters on the use of force and armed conflict include new reflections on the role of government lawyers and consider new developments in substantive law in an era of drones and “cyberwarfare.” The fourth and final part considers the relationship between domestic law and international law. This is the portion of the book most closely geared to the demands of U.S. law practice. At the same time, it introduces readers to other countries’ views on issues such as jurisdiction,...

...a target was absolutely isolated and no chance of collateral damage.” And speaking of drones, Foreign Policy offers ten ways to fix the drone war. The UK will not invite Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez to the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, but later decided that “good manners” required that at the very least the Argentinian ambassador should be invited. Julian will be happy to see some sign of progress at last: the ICJ will hear Australia’s case against Japan over the latter’s whaling program in late June and early July. At...

...of government are weighing in on how wars should be fought: in the United States, the phrase “human rights-based approach to drones” passes without much comment in the legal academy and mainstream media. As the grandees of the human rights movement enter high office throughout North America and Western Europe, what is the effect of this legal doctrine on warfare–and vice versa?Will this blossoming relationship bring about more humanity in warfare? Or is human rights being conscripted into ever more militarized foreign policy? SOAS has now made the video of...

...the coercive circumstances masquerade as efficiency and better service delivery. Fortifying the Border Autonomous technologies are increasingly used in securing border spaces. FRONTEX, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, has been testing unpiloted military-grade drones in the Mediterranean for the surveillance and interdiction of migrant vessels hoping to reach European shores to file asylum applications. These technologies can have drastic results. While ‘smart-border’ technologies have been called a more ‘humane’ alternative to the Trump Administration’s physical wall, using new surveillance technologies along the US-Mexico border have more than tripled...

Perhaps as a good primer to our upcoming book discussion this week, a few drone-related news items: Despite Pakistan’s requests to the US to stop the program, the third drone strike in Pakistan in as many days has taken its toll on new victims; irrespective of the method of civilian or combatant counting, there are at least 27 dead. The Washington Post points out that drone strikes in Yemen raise legal questions. Canada has come out in support of the US’ use of drones. The UN Committee on Torture has...