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Search: drones

04 Mar

...killing. People like to compare drone strikes to carpet bombing, but if drones were not available, would the United States carpet bomb Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia...? It is of course possible to construct scenarios in which the use of an autonomous weapon system might result in fewer deaths than the use of soldiers and human-controlled weapons. However, such scenarios are mostly dubious and artificial, and often rest on fatuous assertions, such as the claim that robots can make use of sensors not available to humans (as if humans cannot make use...
04.03.14 | |

09 Jan

...governed by IHL (the Criminal Procedure Law of 2006, for example, allowed Israel to incarcerate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip suspected of criminal offences in detention facilities in Israel and to prosecute them in Israeli civil courts). Gaza (unilateral) withdrawal was a disengagement and not an end of accupation (Israeli drones monitor Gaza from the air, Israeli naval ships prevent Gazan fishermen from sailing more than 4 kilometers from shore..). On top of this, the wall and the evacuation of the ground settlements in Gaza were parts of the same...
09.01.14 | |

28 Sep

...and a more nuanced response from the Dutch MFA (also for those who cannot read Dutch) in a recent paper Christophe Paulussen and I wrote surveying EU Member States on such questions (see page 32 et seq. here: http://icct.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ICCT-Dorsey-Paulussen-Towards-A-European-Position-On-Armed-Drones-And-Targeted-Killing-Surveying-EU-Counterterrorism-Perspectives.pdf): "The Netherlands holds that self-defence under article 51 UN Charter can provide a legal basis to use force in case of an (imminent) armed attack.The Caroline-criteria provide a useful instrument in order to assess whether an attack is imminent. From this it follows that general, non-specific, threats by terrorist organisations cannot...
28.09.15 | |

23 Nov

...for violations of their rights. For instance Guantanamo inmates should be able to sue the U.S., demand due process or demand to be released. The relatives of persons killed by drones should be able to sue U.S. and if the killing is unlawful, they should get compensation. Al-Adsani should be able to sue Kuwait. Etc. Liz Well, MMT, that would certainly make a compelling case for nation states to engage in proxy warfare to ameliorate the potential for culpability. As power is already devolving along with stability, I see no...
23.11.10 | |

12 Aug

Mihai Martoiu Ticu It’s a very dangerous technology. Imagine George Bush with electrodes on his head in the dock at ICC giving away that all he wanted was to rob Iraq and control the rest of the world instead of bringing democracy, freedom and fighting terrorism. Or imagine that Koh should have to deliver his speech about drones with such a device on his head and all the read leds detecting lies would explode. Benjamin Davis Orwell's Thought Crimes. Ugh! Best, Ben...
12.08.10 | |

06 Mar

...(discussing these cases (and relying on your great work on piracy)). Mihai Martoiu Ticu If I understand it correctly there is no problem in violating the sovereignty of other states when U.S. invades other countries for oil, kills people with drones, abducts, tortures and rapes El-Masri. One can even sue foreign states when designated by U.S. as terrorist. But sovereignty becomes a problem when big bucks are held accountable. Francisco Forrest Martin Prof. Kontorovich: U.S. v. Furlong addressed the crime of piracy, whereas the ATS is a civil statute. The...
06.03.12 | |

19 May

Salstate As far as I can make out, this person is saying the US can kill whoever it wants wherever it wants…and we should trust them that they follow a rigorous procedure to ensure that such killings are covered by their laws - which they passed to make sure they could kill whoeever and wherever they want. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Osama hit was one they could come pretty close to justifying, but they use the same justification for the slaughter of people with drones, some, possibly...
19.05.11 | |

10 Oct

John C. Dehn I am not on the inside of this debate, but I don't buy the constant meme from former Bush administration officials that debating the proper legal boundaries of our actions overseas is necessarily against our long (rather than short) term interests. We must remember that whatever rules we adopt will be used against us. We then must ask ourselves what those rules should be. What is a bit puzzling to me is that a country using drones to eliminate threats in un- or weakly governed foreign lands...
10.10.11 | |

07 Dec

...temporal limits on such participation. So although I agree that the U.S. would never deliberately target children for no reason, I do not think it is beyond the realm of possibility that it is willing to consider children lawful targets when IHL would say they're not. Mihai Martoiu Ticu Children carrying soda bottles have potential hostile intent because the bottles can be full of potassium chlorate. The only problem is to program drones to recognize soda bottles. John C. Dehn Adding to what Chris said, U.S. soldiers are trained that...
07.12.12 | |

10 Nov

...complex issues. But the only answer that is most certainly not correct is the one which you offer, that is that all of these incidents are part of one big, single IAC. At any rate you also conflate the legality of the US actions under the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello. To take the strikes in Pakistan as an example, my understanding of the facts (which might be completely wrong) is that Pakistan gave persmission to the US to operate its drones there. If so, a jus...
10.11.08 | |

20 Sep

...or statement by the Special Rapporteur. But haven't we seen that before? Jordan Response... Instead of claiming no jurisdiction (and suffering foreign policy defeats), the U.S. should agree that human rights law applies during war BUT, on the merits, those who would be protected under, for example, the ICCPR must be within the "effective control" of the U.S. or its personnel and that those targeted by drones are not. Further, on the merits, they are not targeted arbitrarily and the human right to life is a right to freedom from...
20.09.11 | |

24 Sep

...because he defended the wall built in Palestine, the massacre of Jenin, the acts of the government against its people in Bahrein. On the other hand, the other lawyer you admire, H. Koh, justified the invasion of Grenada and he is not liked in NY for his defense of drones. I called them club of invaders since the countries they represent have ivaded other countries, like Chile who invaded Bolivia in 1879, if you didn't know. So, there's lot of water under the bridge in the problem between Bolivia and...
24.09.15 | |