{"id":8052,"date":"2014-04-26T15:31:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T19:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=8052"},"modified":"2016-11-16T19:26:38","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T00:26:38","slug":"the-uncertain-parameters-of-us-targeted-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/the-uncertain-parameters-of-us-targeted-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Uncertain Parameters of US Targeted Killing"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s one thing to employ drones in a long-term campaign of targeted killing overseas.\u00a0 It\u2019s another thing altogether to do so without transparency or citation of the legal authority for the attacks.\u00a0 This was the point that Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of Human Rights First and Lecturer at Columbia Law School, focused on in his remarks<\/a> at Harvard Law School on April 18.<\/p>\n

A little background: under the laws of war, parties to armed conflict must 1) distinguish between military and civilian objects of attack, 2) take precautions to avoid civilian casualties, and 3) refrain from attacking if the likely collateral damage from an attack would exceed the military advantage gained.\u00a0 And if a state seeks to target its attacks on an individual, only members of enemy armed forces and civilians directly participating in hostilities may be targeted.<\/p>\n

One major problem with the Obama Administration\u2019s drone policy is that many drone strikes are taking place in countries that are not in armed conflict with the US.\u00a0 Assuming strikes in places like Yemen and Somalia cannot be justified under the shaky assertion that the War on Terror constitutes a global armed conflict, the only legal justification for those attacks is that the targets pose imminent threats to American lives and cannot be ameliorated with less than lethal means.<\/p>\n

The volume of attacks taking place outside of areas of armed conflict makes the civilian casualties that ensue all the more troubling.\u00a0 \u201cOutside of armed conflict, the \u2018civilian\/combatant\u2019 distinction does not exist,\u201d said Rona.\u00a0 \u201cEveryone is a civilian.\u201d\u00a0 The administration\u2019s discussion of its drone attacks often fails to acknowledge this reality.\u00a0 For example, the US Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations Outside the United States and Areas of Active Hostilities<\/a> incorrectly employs the civilian\/combatant distinction for attacks outside of armed conflict.\u00a0 This is, at best, a misunderstanding of the law. \u00a0And it is parroted by news outlets<\/a>, deepening the spiral of misinformation.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s view of what constitutes an imminent threat is also increasingly divorced from reality.\u00a0 Imminence is now defined as something ongoing, focused more on the degree of potential harm than the time within which a threat is posed.\u00a0 One need only consult the Merriam-Webster definition of imminent \u2013 \u201chappening very soon\u201d \u2013 to confirm how baffling<\/a> this new interpretation is.\u00a0 \u201cThe US has taken the position that traditional notions of imminence are pass\u00e9,\u201d said Rona.<\/p>\n

Rona argues that the damage from the US\u2019s fast and loose handling of drone strikes is not limited to civilian casualties, either. \u201cThe United States has had to muffle its voice in the face of human rights violations by others for fear of being branded a hypocrite. Our practices are cited as justification for what we used to call torture.\u201d\u00a0 So long as the US continues to use drone strikes in response to problems that likely could be addressed through requests of other countries\u2019 police forces, diplomacy, and other non-lethal means, its ability to lead on human rights issues is severely impaired.<\/p>\n

All of these problems are complicated by the secrecy with which the Obama administration shrouds its drone program. \u00a0\u201cBefore we can decide whether existing law is or isn\u2019t correct, we need to have a public debate about it, and before that, we need the administration to tell us what legal claims it\u2019s making,\u201d said Rona.\u00a0 \u201cAt a minimum, people living in a democracy deserve to know who they are at war against and who is being killed in their name.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBefore we can decide whether existing law is or isn\u2019t correct, we need to have a public debate about it, and before that, we need the administration to tell us what legal claims it\u2019s making,\u201d said Rona. \u201cAt a minimum, people living in a democracy deserve to know who they are at war against and who is being killed in their name.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":8053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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