Drones and 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).

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

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.

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.

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...

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...

Ethics & International Affairs, 2014

The international rule of law hinges on the existence of a shared lexicon accepted by states and other actors in the international system. With no independent judicial system capable of determining (and enforcing) the meaning of words and concepts, states must develop shared interpretations of the law and the concepts and terms it relies on, and be willing (mostly) to abide by those shared interpretations. When such shared interpretations exist, key aspects of the rule of law can be present even in the absence of an international judicial system; state behavior can be reasonably predictable, nonarbitrary, and transparent; and accountability can also be possible, albeit mainly through nonjudicial mechanisms.

pp. 89-98 in Robots on the Battlefield Contemporary Perspectives and Implications for the Future, Ronan Doaré, Didier Danet, Jean-Paul Hanon, and Gérard de Boisboissel, Combat Studies Institute Press US Army Combined Arms Center Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2014

2017

Usage of new technology in warfare has bamboozled the existing customs and etiquettes in battlefield. Especially the innovation of Drone as a lethal weapon in the battle field has created much complexities in International Humanitarian Law. The greater problem of Drones is that it unlike other weapons or mass destructive methods, entirely Drones do not possess the military features. With regard to the current legal implications Drones have not been regarded as a prohibited weapon by any international treaty or customary law. Neither Drone have been prohibited by the Article 8 of Rome statute as they do not exhibit any banned qualities such as causing indiscriminate harms or unnecessary sufferings. In fact Article 36 of Additional Protocol 1 of Geneva Convention states a new weapon could be acquired, if it is not prohibited by the protocol. This legal ambiguity has created a heavy loophole in the black letter law to legitimize this deadly weapon. As a matter of fact number of issues ...

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.