The Humanitarian Impact of Drones (original) (raw)
The Humanitarian Problem with Drones (2013)
Utah Law Review, Vol 2013, No 5, 2013
One of the difficulties with the debate on drones is how it has become a sort of lightning rod for all kinds of anxieties about the use of force in today’s world. Drones are, often problematically, the emblematic weapon for a range of other phenomena and so, unsurprisingly, attract much polemic. The challenge, thus, is to find what is problematic specifically with drones as a technology in armed conflict that could not be dealt with better by invoking a larger genus of problems. In order to do this, I outline a series of ways in which drones have been seen as problematic which I argue are either not specifically humanitarian, or really interested in something else such as what the legal framework applicable to the “war on terror” should be. Separating these very important debates from the humanitarian questions that ought to be asked about drones as such is crucial if one is to make conceptual headway. I then examine the issue of whether there is anything that is specific and/or inherent to drones, and address the question of whether it is that drones cause unwarranted harm to civilians. I seek to explain how, regardless of the answer to that complicated question, drones are much more likely to be perceived as inflicting excessive damage due to their highly discriminatory potential but also, crucially, the way in which they maximize the safety of the drone operator. If anything, it is this aspect that is most specific and novel about drones. I argue that this absolute safety of the operator not only maximizes states’ ability to minimize collateral harm, as has already been observed elsewhere, but also has the potential to fundamentally alter the laws of war’s tolerance for collateral harm, which was always based on the assumption of a tradeoff between harm to the attacker and to “enemy civilians.” It is this tradeoff that is increasingly at risk of being rendered moot. I finish with an attempt to contextualize the drone problem within a larger history of exogenous technological shock to international humanitarian law and how it has addressed them. Overall, the article is interested not just in determining whether drone use may or may not be “legal” but also more broadly how it impacts some of the moral underpinnings of the laws of war.
The paper in two parts analyses the challenges the new emerging technology of drones face in the 21st century. This is against the background of the war on terror and the need by states to limit collateral damage (troop loss). By extension the introduction of drones onto the scene has implications for human rights, especially for innocent civilians. The paper analyses the challenges of the new technology to the right to life, right to privacy, and the right to human dignity. The conclusion from the research shows that even though drone technology and its use has greatly aided the war on terror and has limited the number of KIA’s (killed in action), from a humanitarian perspective more has to be done to ensure its efficiency in pursuit of the protection of human rights. Key words: Drones, civilian lives, human rights, signature strikes, personality strikes, surgical strikes.
Open Journal of Political Science, 2014
There is a notable absence of legal approaches to the discourse evaluating use of drones. Even when drones are discussed in a legal context, arguments assert that drones require a new legal regime to adapt to modern qualities and circumstances. In the alternative, this paper argues that drones compatibly fit into existing legal regimes, particularly international criminal law (ICL) and international humanitarian law (IHL) in accordance with general principles of international law. This paper argues that use of drones in armed conflict fits within existing laws governing use of force as the frameworks in use today. It demonstrates that ICL and IHL provide flexible guidelines appropriately suitable to particulars of drones, such as types and capabilities, but more importantly, they continue to provide legal governance applicable to drones as weapons. Legal uncertainty as to the use of drones is thus evaluated within the hypothetical exploration of drone usage culminating in a war crime before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
DRONE WARFARE AND ITS CHALLENGES TO HUMAN RIGHTS.docx
The paper in two parts analyses the challenges the new emerging technology of drones face in the 21 st century. This is against the background of the war on terror and the need by states to limit collateral damage (troop loss). By extension the introduction of drones onto the scene has implications for human rights, especially for innocent civilians. The paper analyses the challenges of the new technology to the right to life, right to privacy, and the right to human dignity. The conclusion from the research shows that even though drone technology and its use has greatly aided the war on terror and has limited the number of KIA's (killed in action), from a humanitarian perspective more has to be done to ensure its efficiency in pursuit of the protection of human rights.
Global Journal of Human-Social Science Research, 2015
With the advancement of technology, the shape and nature of warfare has changed. In recent times, there has been the proliferation of armed drones technology and its usage. From when drones were made operational in the Balkans war, they have been used particularly by the US in places like Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq and controlled by the CIA. With these rapid development and proliferations, machines are starting to take the place of humans in the battlefield. The proliferation and usage of these armed drones poses challenges to the principles of international humanitarian and human rights laws especially when they are operated by non- military personnel like the CIA, the parameters of their detention and prosecution. This paper therefore analyses the effects that the proliferation and usage of armed drones has on the basic principles of international humanitarian and human rights law and concludes that the ability of armed drones to carry out targeted killings without exerc...
Drones under International Law
Open Journal of Political Science, 2014
There is a notable absence of legal approaches to the discourse evaluating use of drones. Even when drones are discussed in a legal context, arguments assert that drones require a new legal regime to adapt to modern qualities and circumstances. In the alternative, this paper argues that drones compatibly fit into existing legal regimes, particularly international criminal law (ICL) and international humanitarian law (IHL) in accordance with general principles of international law. This paper argues that use of drones in armed conflict fits within existing laws governing use of force as the frameworks in use today. It demonstrates that ICL and IHL provide flexible guidelines appropriately suitable to particulars of drones, such as types and capabilities, but more importantly, they continue to provide legal governance applicable to drones as weapons. Legal uncertainty as to the use of drones is thus evaluated within the hypothetical exploration of drone usage culminating in a war crime before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Fly High Or Die Trying: Drones in the Service of Human Rights
Rome, IAI, July 2018, 4 p. (IAI Commentaries ; 18|39), 2018
Drones have become a common feature of today’s world. Used interchangeably with other terms such as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), unmanned aircraft system (UAS) or remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS), these technologies continue to suffer from a “drone stigma”, in which large portions of public opinion tend to consider drones through a military lens, believing that “any drone is a killer drone”. Until diplomats and the public at large begin seeing drone technology as capable of saving, instead of only destroying, the lives of those fleeing persecution, the drone stigma will likely continue. This will deprive international actors of an invaluable new tool for the protection, monitoring and accountability of human rights abuses and violations of IHL.
The Legal Status of Drones in Armed Conflicts: Analysing Current Norms and Future Challenges
Academic Journal of Legal and Political Researchs, 2024
Drones have emerged as critical equipment in current war, revolutionizing army operations. However, questions arise about their legal status under International Humanitarian Law. The use of drones challenge situations conventional IHL frameworks, posing ethical and operational dilemmas. Accountability, duty, and the emergence of autonomous drones further complicate these issues. The use of drones in armed conflict has significant implications for international law and international security. Integrating drones into military techniques challenging existing legal norms and requires updates to cope with their specific characteristics. The evolving technology increases issues approximately sovereignty, civilian protection, and ethics, necessitating proactive and dynamic processes to regulating drone use in armed conflicts.
Armed drones and international humanitarian law
Digital Policy Studies
The militarisation of Artificial Intelligence Diplomacy has resulted in the development of heavy weapons that are more powerful than traditional weaponry, fail to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and cause unnecessary suffering. Superpowers and middle powers have made significant investments in digital technologies, resulting in the production of digital weapons that violate international humanitarian law and human rights standards, and complicate the achievement of global peace. Armed drones and militarised robots cause unnecessary pain and suffering to helpless civilians. These weapons have been used to combat terrorism, but, surprisingly, have not addressed issues of terrorism that affect post-Cold War international relations. As a result, the use of armed drones is causing more harm than is necessary to achieve the objective of war. There is a call for international artificial intelligence (AI) governance, as well as a need to understand the effects and serious thre...
Lethal force and drones: The human rights question
Steven James Barela (ed.), The Legitimacy of Drones, 2015
Drones are being used – and are likely to be increasingly used- in peacetime policing. The likelihood that drones could be armed to use force domestically in order to maintain or restore public, security, law, and order in the near future should, however, not be underestimated. In the multifaceted fight against terrorism, armed drones have moreover been widely used against persons extraterritorially, including outside armed conflict situations. Even in armed conflicts, drones may be used – like in peacetime- to conduct law enforcement activities. The use of lethal force by means of drones in such cases is governed exclusively by international human rights law and its rules and standards for the use of force. The practical and legal consequences of this position remain, however, unexplored. While the legal and humanitarian issues posed by drone strikes have been extensively examined under the lens of international humanitarian law, the issue of the potential conformity of drone strikes with the law enforcement paradigm has been overlooked. Can the use of force by drones (ever) respect the principles of absolute necessity and proportionality? How can an escalation of force procedure be applied in such situations? There are some of the key questions this chapter will address.
Use of Drones and Global Security: Implications Under International Law
The recent practice consisting in the use of drones in combat operations against non-state actors has provoked a large debate among international actors and legal scholars. Considered a nontraditional instrument of the use of force, the first issue of concern regards the ius ad bellum, which is the legal grounds of recourse to force and, on the other side, the ius in bello which explains the modalities of the use of force, once an armed conflict already exists. For these reasons, beside the fulfillment of the criteria established by art. 51 and Chapter VII of UN Charter on the use of force, the use of drones should also, in the context of legitimate armed attack, fully respect the criteria imposed by humanitarian international law such as proportionality, necessity and immediacy. With regard to self-defense, the use of drones under international law raises several legal questions mostly related to the pre-emptive or anticipatory nature of the use of force. Under current conventional and customary international law, the pre-emptive use of force is severally prohibited and thus, considered a violation of art. 2 (4) of the UN Charter. Self-defense, in order to be considered in conformity with art. 51 of the Charter, could be exercised in anticipatory way if an armed attack of the counter-part has already started. Outside the cases of self-defense and SC authorization, the use of drones (as a form of use of force) could be acceptable only in case of express territorial state consent. In the areas outside the combat zone (where ius in bello applies) the use of drones is not lawful. In these cases applies enforcement measures law and the drone targeted killings are to be considered "extra-judicial killings". For these reasons, the practice of the use of drones in different areas of the world not Rivista elettronica del Centro di Documentazione Europea dell'Università Kore di Enna 2 involved in an armed conflict contrast with current international law and compromise the achievement of global security. Keywords: drones, ius in bello, ius ad bellum, international law, global security, use of force, selfdefense, armed attack. Content: 1. Global security and use of force: introductive considerations -2. Use of drones between ius ad bellum and ius in bello -3. Legality of targeted killings by using drones
Extremely Stealthy and Incredibly Close: Drones, Control, and Responsibility
Drone technology is not only a game changer, it also triggers obligations. If we recast our perception of drones as solitary planes to one of a comprehensive technology with extensive surveillance and control capabilities, we encounter new and crucial legal implications of the use of drones in armed conflict. To make its argument, this article first places the surveillance and control capabilities of drone technology within the context of the European Convention of Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights has found that the Convention applies in a number of cases where a member state exercised control and authority over persons or territories outside Europe. The article argues that this may affect the legal basis for European states that employ drones for attacks. The second part of the article examines the implications of the surveillance capabilities of drone technology for the principle of precaution in international humanitarian law. In addition to identifying so far overlooked legal implications arising from the employment or availability of drone technology for attack in armed conflict, the article raises the more general question of how the laws concerning armed conflict should be applied in an era of total surveillance.
The International Journal of Human Rights The legal and ethical implications of drone warfare
This article examines whether American drone-based targeted killing program represents a fundamentally new challenge to the traditional legal and ethical standards of armed conflict. It argues that the novelty of drones flows less from the technology itself than from the Obama administration's articulation of a presumptive right of anticipatory self-defense, which allows it to strike anywhere in the world where al Qaeda and its allies are present. It highlights five new legal and ethical dimensions to the Obama administration's drones policy, all of which may lower the traditional barriers to the use of force if other actors begin to follow contemporary American practice.
The Current & Future Use of Armed Drones: Analysing the Controversy
Since the 9/11 attacks, the drone has established itself as perhaps the most iconic weapon in the ‘War on Terror’. The debate surrounding their use though is a fierce one. For some, they are the ‘wonder weapons of today’s wars’ (Dowd: 2013). For others, the technology is ‘illegitimate and immoral’ (Everest: 2013). The aim of this study is to cut through this controversy with a view to gaining a greater understanding of their net utility. In doing so, this study identifies and critically evaluates the primary technological, security and legal arguments for and against the use of armed drones. Before reaching a conclusion, it also examines how these 3 key themes may develop in response to the future challenges of autonomy and proliferation.
Legal and Moral Dilemmas of Targeted Killing by Drones
If we are to ignore the pain of others, how are we to heal the damage? Former drone operator, Brandon Bryant Abstract The essay makes a critical review of the legal debate in the USA and in the United Nations on moral and legal issues involved in military use of drones in wars of today. The main goal was to study the main lines of argument ant its relevance to military practice of targeted killing. We found that legal criticism is on the increase but the military practice continues. We stress the moral risk of using the autonomous weapons. In conclusion, we suggest the need for new both domestic and international regulations of any use of drones before they become fully autonomous and beyond control. Timing is crucial. If humans will not control the technology, the technology will control humans. New UN convention on smart weapons and the conditions under which its use should be allowed is a matter of practical necessity as the number of states using it increases so fast.
Issues on The Enforcement of International Humanitarian Law to The Use of Drones in Armed Conflicts
International conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION
Drones are new means and methods of warfare which, apparently, are similar to combat aircrafts. A big difference between the two categories is the human personnel involved. Compared with airplanes, carrying a human crew on board - this one carrying out combat operations from inside the aircraft - drones do not have inside human beings, being coordinated from the ground (or sea) - the military actions carrying out from the place where the operators are. So the question arises: what kind of rules of international humanitarian law are applicable to the use of drones in armed conflicts? Starting from the rule that legal rules apply to legal relationships between people (but not directly to objects or animals), I analyze to what extent these means and methods of warfare are subject to the rules of armed conflict on land, sea or air.
The international law framework regulating the use of armed drones
International and Comparative Law Quarterly , 2016
This article provides a holistic examination of the international legal frameworks which regulate targeted killings by drones. The article argues that for a particular drone strike to be lawful, it must satisfy the legal requirements under all applicable international legal regimes, namely: the law regulating the use of force (ius ad bellum); international humanitarian law and international human rights law. It is argued that the legality of a drone strike under the ius ad bellum does not preclude the wrongfulness of that strike under international humanitarian law or international human rights law, and that since those latter obligations are owed to individuals, one State cannot consent to their violation by another State. The article considers the important legal challenges that the use of armed drones poses under each of the three legal frameworks mentioned above. It considers the law relating to the use of force by States against non-State groups abroad. This part examines the principles of self-defence and consent, in so far as they may be relied upon to justify targeted killings abroad. The article then turns to some of the key controversies in the application of international humanitarian law to drone strikes. It examines the threshold for non-international armed conflicts, the possibility of a global non-international armed conflict and the question of who may be targeted in a non-international armed conflict. The final substantive section of the article considers the nature and application of the right to life in armed conflict, as well as the extraterritorial application of that right particularly in territory not controlled by the State conducting the strike. Keywords: classification of conflicts, consent and use of force, direct participation in hostilities, drones, extraterritorial application of right to life, human rights in armed conflict, non-international armed conflicts, self-defence, self-defence and non-State groups.
Using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) as an analytical tool, this paper will argue that these are good for reflecting on the legal, ethical and moral dilemmas inherent to US’s remote control warfare. Firstly, viewed in the context of ‘virtuous warfare’ (Der Derian, 2009), UAS mark a turn in the advent of an Information war which is redefining political violence and geography. This will lead us to explore issues of legality in US’s covert warfare. Secondly, denouncing the bio-political motives behind their use, we will question the moral permissibility of violence wielded by UAS, Moreover, the new temporalities and spacial relationships created by UAS will enable us to critique the asymmetrically of remotely controlled warfare by tackling the ethical implications raised by the ‘distant-intimacy’ phenomenon. Thirdly, we will conclude by underscoring the quixotic task of eliminating risk from war, showing how UAS have positioned the US in a paradoxical situation where virtuous wars generate riskier futures and insecure environments, at home and abroad.
Drones: Mapping the Legal Debate
2013
The purpose of this paper is to provide a very preliminary sketch of the legal debates about the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) -otherwise known as drones. I will focus on two main areas of contention: firstly, whether or not the United States is legally at war with those caught in its crosshairs and, secondly, whether or not these individuals qualify as legitimate targets within the dominant frames of war. At the same time, however, I will also consider if this reliance upon international law serves only to normalise the violence that is being inflicted, displacing important ethical and political questions with purely technical concerns about proportionality, discrimination and military necessity. The law, I argue, may be part of the problem, not a solution to it.