In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: drones

29 Sep

...say, “I hear you guys are looking for me.” No special forces guys, Predator drones, or air strikes are going to take him out if he does this. In other words, this situation is, in conceptual terms, a fairly close analogue to the one in which cops surround a building and say, “Come out with your hands up or we’ll shoot.” Ben and I disagreed about the “surrender” option at the time, and I continue to find it unconvincing even with regard to al-Aulaqi. But a post by Glenn Greenwald...
29.09.10 | |

01 Apr

...to the U.S. military’s use of armed drones. These criticisms are grounded in larger ethical and morality debates, but increasingly rely on AI as the focal point of contention.   We should neither dismiss outright the potential future dangers of AI use in the military, however unrealistic those risks are often portrayed, nor assume that more immediate, pressing concerns about AI-enabled military systems will be resolved without proactive intervention. To balance the assessment of both speculative and immediate risks, I suggest a five-tier risk hierarchy for developing and employing AI in...
01.04.24 | |

16 Jul

...ecosystems—integrating AI-powered surveillance, facial recognition, behavioral analytics, predictive policing algorithms, and biometric identification tools into their service portfolios. One need only look to Anduril Industries, a U.S.-based defense technology firm founded by Silicon Valley engineers and former military operatives, to grasp the scale of this shift. The company develops autonomous surveillance towers, sensor-laden autonomous drones and underwater systems, and is now even helping integrate augmented-reality headsets for frontline troops. At the heart of its operations lies the Lattice platform—a powerful dual-use AI-enabled operating system that fuses sensor inputs across domains,...
16.07.25 | |

20 Mar

...they do not, what kinds of compensation may ever be made available to those who wrongfully suffer a misdirected attack – who knows? By a number of accounts – Richard Clarke’s and others – CIA came to be in the drone business substantially because the military, and especially the Air Force, didn’t want the mission in the 1990’s when the idea of putting a missile on surveillance drones in the interest of counterterrorism first came into vogue. Times have since changed. CIA is no longer the only option. There is...
20.03.13 | |

25 Apr

...industrial zone. Lawfare highlights a snippet of testimony given at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on drones that alleges that the Obama Administration is targeting and killing low-level insurgents, the detainment of whom caused much criticism during the Bush Administration years. In addition to British, French and Israeli allegations, Qatar is now saying that Syria has been using chemical weapons against its own people. Under pressure from the political far-right, Switzerland has now restricted immigration from all EU countries, placing an annual restriction on the number of resident permits it...
25.04.13 | |

21 Jun

...Al Qaeda at the time of the Cole bombing — before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the authorization by Congress to use military force against their perpetrators. The United States initially handled the Cole attack as a peacetime terrorism crime, but the government now contends that a state of armed conflict had legally existed since 1996, when Osama bin Laden declared war against the United States. According to the Obama administration, therefore, “firing missiles from drones that kill people over an extended period of time pursuant to a U.N.-authorized...
21.06.11 | |

01 May

...He made the best case anyone could, but it left a lot to be desired. Throughout his tenure at State, we called on the administration to ensure that its targeted killing program was consistent with the laws of war. We’re still not satisfied that it is. But on a range of issues — military commissions, treaties, Guantanamo Bay, detention, and transparency on drones — Koh forged progress behind the scenes. This wasn’t the kind of work that made headlines, but it strengthened respect for human rights and reduced suffering. If...
01.05.15 | |

09 Jun

...to the implementation of the treaty and its international humanitarian law aspects. More information is here. ALMA and the Radzyner School of Law of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya would like to invite you to the next session of the Joint International Humanitarian Law Forum, on June 19, 2013. This month they host Prof. Eugene Kontorovich to discuss his new article “Jurisdiction over Israeli Settlement Activity in the International Criminal Court” and Dr. Ben Clarke to present his new article “Arming drones for law enforcement: challenges and opportunities for the...
09.06.13 | |

09 Jan

...his pre-trial detention. The UN is seeking to deploy surveillance drones over Congo, but neighboring Rwanda is not happy with this proposal. In other news about the DRC, the M23 rebels have declared a unilateral ceasefire ahead of a second round of peace talks with the government. Over at Justice in Conflict, Mark Kersten writes more about the US’s Rewards for Justice program and implications with America’s relationship with the ICC. A senior White House official has said the US would consider leaving no American troops in Afghanistan after the...
09.01.13 | |

04 Mar

...qualms about drones as technologies that enable the first two without putting US personnel at risk. Cave on anything beyond statements of legal principles and process, and the result will not be “institutional settlement,” but instead merely moving the goal posts; there isn’t really room for “dialogue,” let alone negotiation, but simply and necessarily one-sided articulation. That said, the articulation is important, because there is a problem when even a Kimberly Dozier story cannot resist a mild intimation of unsavory lack of accountability: “But a CIA-run war would mean that...
04.03.12 | |

04 May

...Spiegel reports that the US Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany, is a central and indispensible element in Barack Obama’s controversial use of drones in the war against terror. Americas Costa Rica has issued an emergency alert after a ship carrying 180 tons of ammonium nitrate sunk off the country’s Pacific coast, releasing the massive amount of toxic cargo into the ocean. The death toll from an air strike by U.S.-led forces on the northern Syrian province of Aleppo has risen to 52 including seven children, a group monitoring the...
04.05.15 | |

18 Apr

...drones. Other countries are moving to restrict access to claims by judges of universal jurisdiction, including in Spain, true. But my read of those is that rather than plainly stripping out the category, instead the move – as in Spain – is to require highly discretionary political assent from someone, whether the Ministry of Justice or Attorney General or someone similar with political accountability. (Bear in mind that the magistrate position that Garzon occupies is something between a judge and an investigating district attorney in the American system – it...
18.04.10 | |