Search: drones
12 Feb The Shift from Proportionality to Necessity and an Indirect Comment on Gaby Blum’s Article
...name of “necessity” in treating non-state actors, but the reciprocal obligations elaborated for soldiers turn out to mean nothing, as usual. In any case, it does not seem to me to travel outside this special circumstance. In the case of targeted killing using drones or special forces, in counterterrorism rather than part of a conventional overt conflict, or outside the overt parts of it, however, I think it is a useful and important discussion. Necessity and distinction take center stage, because the status is not self-defining through uniforms or such....25 Jan The ICC and Mainstream TV: A Recent Episode of The Blacklist
...because the US is not a party to the ICC. (Venezeula, of course, is). On the other hand, the writers glossed over the fact that “delivering” a high level US government official to the ICC’s front door does not equal a referral – the ICC has the power to determine whether its jurisdictional requirements are met under Arts. 12 & 13 of the Rome Statute. The other creative fiction of the show is that the ICC has an ongoing investigation into US activities (drones, torture, and rendition). In reality, the...02 Jun The UN’s New Report on Targeted Killing
...governing their use in situations of armed conflict.” The clearest challenge to this principal today, according to the independent expert, comes from the program operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency in which targeted killings are carried out from unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. “It is clear that many hundreds of people have been killed, and that this number includes some innocent civilians. Because the program remains shrouded in official secrecy, the international community does not know when and where the CIA is authorized to kill, the criteria for individuals...05 Oct Weekly News Wrap: Monday, October 5, 2015
...Thai Union Group Pcl, to free its supply chains of destructive fishing practices and alleged labor abuses. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the killing of a Japanese man in Bangladesh on Saturday, in a statement posted on their official Twitter account. Europe The British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced he will be doubling the number of drones the country’s armed forces use in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The European Union should loosen its deficit rules due to extra spending caused by...25 Apr The Legality Surrounding the US Strikes in Syria
[Nancy Simons is a Belgian lawyer and serves on the International Bar Association’s Drones Task Force. Her professional background lies in international law generally. She has worked at a number of international non-governmental organisations and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.] It has been almost two weeks since the United States (US) initiated several missile strikes on a Syrian airfield. From the US perspective, the justification for this use of force was that it was in response to the use of chemical weapons allegedly by the Assad regime....
19 Dec Inhuman-in-the-loop: AI-targeting and the Erosion of Moral Restraint
[ Neil Renic is a Researcher at the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen, focusing on the changing character and regulation of armed conflict, and emerging military technologies such as armed drones and autonomous weapons. Elke Schwarz is Reader in Political Theory at Queen Mary University London, specialising in ethics of war and ethics of technology with an emphasis on unmanned and autonomous / intelligent military technologies and their impact on the politics of contemporary warfare.] A recent report by the Israeli magazine +972 on the use...19 Oct Harold Koh: Twenty-First Century International Law Making
Earlier this week, Harold Koh gave a speech. And it wasn’t about conflicts, drones, or cyberwar, topics that have dominated the attention of international lawyers in recent years. Rather, Koh’s speech was a meditation on the processes of international law-making that confront the State Department on a daily basis. It was, simply put, a survey of the current international legal landscape from the U.S. perspective. Koh reviewed the formal U.S. treaty-making process, citing past victories like the New START Treaty and the Obama Administration’s continued push for Senate advice and...
12 Aug Emerging Voices: The Use of ‘Stabilization’ in the Mandates of UN Peace Operations
...supported by attack helicopters and drones, and has had skirmishes with armed groups, make the intensification of hostilities a distinct possibility. Where there are sustained, direct clashes between MINUSMA and armed groups it would be difficult for the UN to contest the applicability of IHL. Whether a peace operation is a party to the conflict under IHL is also relevant where the UN is providing support to the host state military. Peace operations do not typically fight a war against an enemy but, for instance, MINUSMA is mandated to conduct...06 Apr Events and announcements: April 6, 2014
...October 2014. Proposals for papers should be submitted to the editors by July 31, 2014. Contact details are available on the TDM website. Announcements The ICRC has launched its first Research & Debate Cycle on New Technologies and the Modern Battlespace. In recent years, a wide array of new technologies has entered the modern battlefield, giving rise to new methods and means of warfare, such as cyber attacks, armed drones and robots. While there can be no doubt that IHL applies to them, applying pre-existing legal rules to new technologies...