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Search: drones

17 Jan

...recognition that drones 'enable a State to perform targeted killing without exercising effective control over territory and without having the individual in custody.' In so many words, the Heyns report argues that the United States cannot escape the purview of human rights law (the ICCPR included) by arguing that the jurisdictional scope of the treaties do not capture drone strikes. The same could be said for overseas surveillance. Of course, the Heyns report is hardly the last word on the subject, but there is a big push for the extra-territorial...
17.01.14 | |

25 Sep

...is the former Acting General Counsel of the CIA John Rizzo using the term "murder" to describe some of these drone strikes last summer. That struck me as he would hardly be a person who would not know the meaning of that word in this context. I cited to this in a posting last summer over at SALTLAW.ORG/Blog - http://www.saltlaw.org/blog/2011/07/20/bringing-light-to-dark-matter-drones-torture-illegal-wars/ Second, it is not the concept of signature strikes per se, but rather the criteria that are being used to determine a signature strike. My sense from what I read...
25.09.12 | |

08 Aug

..."collateral damage." All of this helped remove the sting of barbarity from air power (unless, of course, you happened to be one of those "collateral" people under a "surgical" strike). This effort to dehumanize the victims was made easier by the fact that the dangers facing the bomber pilots themselves were generally minimal. War from the air was becoming a one-way street of destruction. At an extreme, with the arrival of fleets of Hellfire-missile-armed unmanned Predator drones over Iraq, the knight of the air suddenly found himself 7,000 miles away...
08.08.06 | |

18 Nov

Mihai Martoiu Ticu What it strike me is that the discussion is about the success of punishing the guy, not about due process and innocence. In those discussions one would consider it a full success if the guy gets a death penalty, less success if he gets life without parole, even if the guy is innocent. The only thing one cares about is that one legitimizes the Guantanamo, the Abu Ghraib, the renditions, the drones and all the rest, that the U.S. gets its will imposed on the rest of...
18.11.10 | |

12 Sep

...attacks and in an effort to stop continual attacks on our nationals (mixed motives do not obviate permissibility of lawful measures of self-defense). The measures of self-defense may take weeks and some may be relatively "silent" (and may or may not involve use of drones for more than intel). These are not matters for "amateurs." Stay tuned. M. Gross I'm not sure we have any recourse we really wish to pursue, since the Libyan government doesn't seem to have intentionally committed the offense. Jordan is no doubt correct about what...
12.09.12 | |

23 Aug

Joshua Hughes Thanks for the interesting post. About your question on whether remote-controlled robots make one more likely to use force, the US Army War College did a study about whether using drones lowered the threshold of conflict. They found out that it did, at least in the eyes of the public. Here's the link: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1289 Jordan Check here to prove that you are not a robot...
23.08.16 | |

12 Jan

...repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured. In this war, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. The disparity between the forces, between the Israeli army - with its airplanes, gunships, drones, warships, artillery and tanks - and the few thousand lightly armed Hamas...
12.01.09 | |

06 Oct

...a scholarly presentation, but I disagree regarding permissible self-defense targetings of non-state attackers who are situated in a foreign country -- at page 22, text around notes 138-139-- I don't read the Wall Op. or the DRC case as actually ruling the way you state -- see my article on Self-Defense Targetings of Non-State Actors and Permissibility of U.S. Use of Drones in Pakistan, 18 J. Transnat'l L. & Pol'y 237, 249-58 (2010), available on ssrn On page 6 at text at note 27, the U.S. S.Ct. did not requore...
06.10.11 | |

24 May

...the President on drone targeting? Steven The use of the "near certainty" standard: Thank you for your clarity. It is clear that in the context of the use of Drones, President Obama is attempting to handcuff America's use of Military force, to the 4th Amendment, the fundamental cornerstone of american "criminal" law enforcement. PResident Obama's goal is to change the way our forces engage threats to our nation. The Near Certainty standard as mentioned in Justice Scalia's Delivery of the Majority opinion in Scott v. Harris, 550 US 372, 380...
24.05.13 | |

02 May

...counter arguments for a trial, but nevertheless aosme sort of process even ex post would have respected rule of law instead of immeidate burial at sea - or any UArt 51 or AUMF authorization arguments that oks in Khanna's mind intrusion into Pakistan's territorial integrity. Such theories for "new rules" and norms are extremely premature and very dangerous especially when applied as practice in context to a highly unstable area of the world already feeling the heating of what are considered extra judicial killings from the use of unmanned drones....
02.05.11 | |

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 | |

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 | |