Judge Challenges White House Claims on Authority in Drone Killings. US open to cooperating with UN probe into drone strikes - The Hill's Global Affairs. Iran to take US to international court over intercepted spy drone. Military, Police Drones May Lead to Supreme Court Ethics Fight. The large-scale deployment of drones by the U.S. military to track and kill enemies, as well as the use of the unmanned planes by police forces for surveillance, may lead to legal disputes about the rights to self-defense and to privacy, according to an article published today in the journal Nature. The use of drones is “a Supreme Court case waiting to happen,” wrote Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, quoting an unnamed U.S. federal district court judge.
The U.S. Defense Department operates more than 7,000 aerial drones and 12,000 unmanned ground systems, Singer wrote, and the Miami and Ogden, Utah, police departments have sought licenses to operate surveillance drones. UK High Court hears Pakistan drone killing case. By Robert Stevens 2 November 2012. U.S.: dismiss lawsuit over Americans killed by drones. The U.S. Government on Friday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit over the killing of three American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen earlier this year: alleged Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Anwar Al-Awlaki, his son Abdulrahman, and alleged AQAP magazine editor Samir Khan.
Judge nixes 'kill list' suit - Josh Gerstein. A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit alleging that the U.S. government has taken to kill Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American-born Islamic cleric and alleged terrorist operative who is in hiding overseas. In a ruling issued Tuesday morning, U.S. District Court Judge John Bates ruled that Al-Awlaki's father, Nasser, lacked standing to pursue the lawsuit against the C.I.A and the U.S. military, which he contends have targeted his son, a suspected member of a Yemen-based branch of Al Qaeda.
However, the judge also found that assessing the validity of the government’s purported decision to put Anwar Al-Awlaki on a hit list is a task beyond the court system. Are our drone attacks legal? Few weapons in the modern arsenal excite the popular imagination like drones.
Sleek and deadly, operated at a remove of thousands of miles by faceless technicians, drones are the harbingers of a new type of warfare: technologically sophisticated, surgically precise and able to take out the enemy with little or no risk to American troops. But there is also a darker side to the drone image. The glossy new war toys are often portrayed as killer robots that, in a Doomsday scenario straight out of Space Odyssey 2001, may one day go rogue. In reality, as numerous experts have pointed out, a drone is just a modern-day tool of war. It can be used as a weapons-delivery system, it can provide sustained and minutely targeted surveillance, and it can take out bad guys with astonishing accuracy. But the convenience of the drones has prompted an explosion in their use. Both sides of the question have ardent champions.
US Breaching IHL By Killing Civilians With Unmanned Drones - OpEd. By Albany Tribune.
Are Drones the New Weapon of Choice In the Battle For Public Opinion? By Helen Jane Martin Cases of deaths caused by US drone strikes are rarely far from front pages, with high-profile insurgents regularly falling victim to their new mechanised enemy.
FO tells court main focus is terrorists: Drone attacks violation of sovereignty. LAHORE, Nov 28: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday told the Lahore High Court that the main focus of US drone attacks was on targeting terrorists in federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan, however, these strikes were in violation of country’s sovereignty.
In a written reply submitted to Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, the ministry said the Pakistan government had been consistent in registering its strong protest with the US on collateral damage and violation of sovereignty. It said the quarters concerned and the parliament had also been denouncing these attacks which were also been conveyed to the US government. UN Official: Aspects of US Drone Program Clearly 'War Crimes' The UN's special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights announced Thursday that the Human Rights Council at the UN will likely initiate an investigation into civilian deaths caused by the CIA and US military's use of drones and other targeted killing programs, and said that if certain allegations against the US prove true, he considers them serious enough to call "war crimes".
Ben Emmerson QC, UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, describes the obstacles he currently faces to his mandate from the United Nations, which is to assess human rights conditions through investigation and reporting. He spoke about counter-terrorism strategies, the accountability of US government officials in the cases of targeted killing, torture, rendition, and secret detention, as well as the stances taken on these issues by the candidates in the upcoming US Presidential Election.
"No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” Says Man Who Regularly Bombs Pakistan and Yemen.