International Law – Page 2

Lawyers Challenge Legal Basis of UK Drone Strikes

08/06/2013Chris Cole

A leading firm of UK lawyers has today published a 52-page opinion on the legality of the use of armed drones by UK forces in Afghanistan. In what is sure to cause consternation in Whitehall, Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) argue that

“it is highly likely that the UK’s current use of drones is unlawful. There is a strong probability that the UK has misdirected itself as to the requirements of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) principles of proportionality, distinction and humanity and as to its human rights obligation to protect human life and to investigate all deaths (civilians and combatants alike) arguably caused in breach of that obligation.”

Obama speaks about drone wars

26/05/2013Chris Cole

On Thursday (23 Oct) President Obama gave a much-trailed speech on counterterrorism, large parts of which focused on the US use of drones. At the same time a ‘fact sheet’ on US policy on the use of force outside declared wars was published, as was a transcript of a background briefing given by senior US officials to journalists. All of these documents give some insight into the US use of drones.

In the speech President Obama accepted many of the criticisms that we and others have made over the past four years including (as he put it) Read more →

Review of the Year Part 1: Drones and the Law

18/12/2012Chris Cole

Arguments relating to the legality of armed drones have raged since the very first Predator strike. However, over the past year, the legal arguments have emerged out of the pages of academic journals and obscure conference rooms and entered the mainstream and indeed, the courtroom. In the first of our reviews of the year we look back at what has happened in relation to legal arguments of the use of drones. Read more →

A challenge to drone apologists – where is your evidence?

24/10/2012Chris Cole

Over the past few week there has been increasing attention to the issues raised by the growing use of armed unmanned drones. As protests at factories and bases have taken place, newspapers have begun to editorialize, politicians have formed committees to investigate and legal action is being undertaken.

Amidst these positive moves there are those of course who would dismiss concerns about drone strikes and remote warfare. Earlier this month Reuters published an Op-Ed piece in response to the Stanford & NYU Law Schools report ‘Living Under Drones, which investigated US drone strikes in Pakistan. Read more →

Are drones compatible with the idea of just war?

01/10/2012Chris Cole

This is an edited version of an article by US Catholic theologians Tobias L. Winright and Mark J. Allman that first appeared in the 18th August 2012 edition of the international Catholic weekly, The Tablet (www.thetablet.co.uk) as ‘Obama’s drone wars: a case to answer. Recalling that Barack Obama spelt out his commitment to the just war tradition at the outset of his presidency, Winright and Allman, reflect on whether the growing use of armed drones is in fact compatible with the just war tradition. Reproduced by kind permission of the publishers. Read more →

CodePink’s Drone Summit

30/04/2012Chris Cole

Over the weekend Codepink, CCR and Reprieve hosted an international summit on drone warfare in Washington DC. Unfortunately we were not able to attend but did take part ‘virtually’ via twitter and livestream feed.

Lots of videos and more from the sessions will be posted soon on their new Drones Watch website. However one of the highlights of the event, a speech by Jeremy Scahill of The Nation, one of the few journalists to travel to countries where the covert drone war is playing out, is already available thanks to Kevin Gosztola, and well worth watching (see Kevin’s blog post here)