Mary Ellen O'Connell Has a New Article on Drones and Targeted Killing
Guess what? They're still illegal outside of Afghanistan:
Targeted killing with drones in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan have generally violated the right to life because the United States is rarely part of any armed conflict in those places. The human right to life that applies is the right that applies in peace. Today, the United States is engaged in armed conflict only in Afghanistan.
Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Guess what? They're still illegal outside of Afghanistan:
Targeted killing with drones in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan have generally violated the right to life because the United States is rarely part of any armed conflict in those places. The human right to life that applies is the right that applies in peace. Today, the United States is engaged in armed conflict only in Afghanistan. To lawfully resort to military force elsewhere requires that the country where the United States is attacking has first attacked the United States (such as Afghanistan in 2001), the U.N. Security Council has authorized the resort to force (Libya in 2011) or a government in effective control credibly requests assistance in a civil war (Afghanistan since 2002).I have nothing new to say on this subject, so I will just incorporate by reference everything I have said before.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
