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Search: drones

21 Oct

...lie is fairly standard for that neck of the woods - consider, e.g., Pakistan's continuing denial of consent for US drone attacks while publicly available satellite imagery shows US drones previously operating from Pakistani airfields. Kerry tried to do just that, but has obviously now been called out. Perhaps the Washington Post and Opinio Juris are not widely read in Afghanistan and this façade can continue. Or perhaps it is ultimately for the better as a more rapid US withdrawal and Taliban takeover, although a short term bloodbath and death...
21.10.13 | |

27 Feb

...accuses me of letting policy preferences trump law in response to a post that made no policy claims whatsoever -- and it's my burden to rebut him? But fine. Here are three examples, all of which I have discussed extensively on the blog: (1) I do not believe that Israel is legally occupying Gaza, though I dislike that legal conclusion immensely; (2) I believe that a wide variety of drone strikes are legal, even though I am completely opposed to the the use of drones on policy grounds; (3) I...
27.02.13 | |

29 Aug

...function as of 12 August due to fuel shortages. Eight hospitals, including three in the southern suburbs of Beirut, were forced to close because bombs were falling around them daily.(27) One hospital, alleged by Israel to be a Hizbullah headquarters, was directly attacked. On 2 August, Israeli commandos in helicopters, supported by fighter planes and drones, raided al-Hikmah hospital in Baalbak in the eastern Bekaa valley. The Israeli army said they captured five Hizbullah members there. However, according to local residents, the five were not captured at the hospital but...
29.08.06 | |

11 Apr

...then, with what protections? With respect to "who," outside the territory of the U.S., for example, those who are in the actual "power or effective control" of the U.S. (not those being targeted by high flying drones). Perhaps for this reason, there was inadequate attention to human rights law, but the point could have been made. With respect to h.r. protections, the ICCPR prohibits "arbitrary" death. Lawful targetings during war or self-defense under UN art. 51 would not be "arbitrary." This point should also have been made. Raha Wala Good...
11.04.12 | |

31 Aug

...triggered only to respond to large-scale atrocity crimes – genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The examples he cites seem off point. But, yes, you make a good argument that (as with the use of drones), it is possible that other countries might in the future attempt to utilize precedent set by the U.S., and this clearly needs to be considered. I am not arguing that the US should be above the standards of international law (I actually would argue to the contrary – that it very...
31.08.13 | |

23 Nov

Mihai Martoiu Ticu Such sounds are welcome here. Until now we heard mostly people telling us that they are free to kill us with drones whenever they like, while they never think about the obvious that we should be able to sue them if we didn't agree with being killed. ==The West wants to hold the rest's use of internal force to international account, but exempt its own use of international force from independent accountability.== Indeed, maybe one could explain to me why can't Iraq sue the United States at...
23.11.10 | |

29 May

...our current involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is this what it takes to win? And, if so, isn't this a price worth paying to get rid of one of the worlds first serious terrorist organisations? The Sri Lankan government shelled the last remaining Tamil positions, we send unmanned drones into Pakistan, and Israel send rockets through people's bedroom windows. The ius in bello does not necessarily forbid "indiscriminate shelling", if that is indeed what they did. It forbids deliberately targeting civilians, and beyond that disproportionate attacks, but even if there...
29.05.09 | |

06 May

...the international system will see it corrected. I would suggest, however, that we are watching the opposite occur. The US military operational strategy, in using drones and special operations forces to make targeted killings of individuals associated with specific terrorist organizations in a number of disparate geographical locations seems to me to be founded on the proposition that the US is currently engaged in a noninternational armed conflict with these specific terrorist orgaizations. As clumsily done as it has been, the message from the US national security establishment is unambiguously...
06.05.11 | |

03 Nov

Steve Groves LOL on #5, Julian. I agree with you, though it would help even more if the Alaska Senate seat goes to Miller. And don't count on a "President Palin" to push for LOST, even though she's from Alaska ... Jordan Response... Re: targeted killing, likely to expand to include more targets in Yemen? and some in Mexico (drones fly along parts of the border now and Secretary Clinton remarked that the narco-terrorist-organized criminals are acting "like" insurgents)? On propriety of targeting, even a U.S. national in Yemen outside...
03.11.10 | |

09 Jul

...justification. From the beginning, however, this enemy has been treated as "the worst of the worst" criminals and terrorists, to be treated as harshly as sentenced felons. Trying to have it both ways, logical contradictions are inevitable. Since Hamdi, the detention of enemy combatants has been authorized under the laws of war. The AUMF may be a trigger, but it is not the source of the authority. The AUMF does not contain any language about dropping bombs or using Predator drones against targets in Pakistan. Once you start an armed...
09.07.09 | |

08 Jul

...U.S. soldiers while one is unprivileged -- one merely does not have the privilege to do so and is subject to being prosecuted under a relevant domestic law for murder. I realize that the GTMO milt. comms. apparently do not understand this. Regarding the CIA fliers of drones, May Ellen and I, among others, have pointed out that they would not be combatants under the laws of war (unless they were also members of the regular armed forces of the U.S.), but I had written that practice and opinion seems...
08.07.14 | |

12 Feb

Mihai Martoiu Ticu It strikes me how many Western intellectual jurists just accept that international law is dominated by power. Most of them don't even see how outrageous it is that individuals cannot sue states in an international court for human rights. Guantanamo, torture and killing with drones depend on the political ambitions of the US politicians, not on law. Mauritius cannot sue the UK at ICJ to get the Chagos back. This is another way how power works in international law. Jurists have internalized such facts as facts of...
12.02.13 | |