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. Still, researchers, manufacturers, and military and civilian users of the drones, as well as regulators and policy makers, have yet to address the legal implications of using robots for military and police missions, Singer wrote. Drone Defense The U.S. UK High Court hears Pakistan drone killing case. By Robert Stevens 2 November 2012 The High Court in London is considering a request for a full judicial inquiry into the alleged role of the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spying operation in aiding drone strikes by the US Central Intelligence Agency in Pakistan’s northwest region.
The court is scheduled to reach a decision before the end of the year. The case has been brought by Noor Khan, a 27-year-old from Waziristan in Pakistan, whose father was killed by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) missile strike in Datta Khel town centre, northwest Pakistan on March 17, 2011. Khan is calling on the court to look into whether UK intelligence officials provided assistance in the killing of his father and if they are liable for prosecution. Malik Daud Khan and those killed in that act of savagery are a small fraction of the thousands killed in US drone attacks over the last decade. The government has called on the High Court to refuse to adjudicate on the claim. 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.
The administration also threatened to invoke the State Secrets Privilege if the suit is not dismissed on other grounds. The privilege, which 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama regularly blasted the Bush administration for invoking, allows the government to seek dismissal of a suit if it could expose national security secrets. In the motion to dismiss, Justice Department lawyers argue that the necessity for the strikes and the viability of any alternatives is a question beyond the proper purview of the courts.
The U.S. In 2010, a federal judge in Washington dismissed a similar suit seeking to strike the elder Al-Awlaki from a purported "kill list" maintained by the U.S. 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. Continue Reading "There are no judicially manageable standards by which courts can endeavor to assess the President's interpretation of military intelligence and his resulting decision — based on that intelligence — whether to use military force against a terrorist target overseas," Bates wrote in his 83-page opinion. 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. But in the war on terror, the globe becomes the battlefield, argue drone enthusiasts. US Breaching IHL By Killing Civilians With Unmanned Drones - OpEd. By Albany Tribune By Shenali Waduge The list of crimes committed by a single state over the last couple of decades is appalling to say the list.
Like a bull in a china shop it simply continues to target and strike with little care for any international laws or humanitarian treaties most of which it has not signed but feel no remorse to quote it upon other nations demanding “accountability” and transparency. The Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) known as drones has become a favored mode of targeting the enemy, 62% of US citizens even approving such attacks without being aware that 80% of drone targets end up killing ordinary civilians and children. While President Bush preferred a cowboys and Indians approach to targeting terrorists, Obama administration has preferred to rely increasingly on the usage of drone strikes as they are cheaper to make than military aircrafts and there is no danger of crew casualty.
The views expressed are the author’s own. About the author: Albany Tribune. Are Drones the New Weapon of Choice In the Battle For Public Opinion? | Pinpoint Politics. 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. Yet, despite this publicity, reliable statistics are unavailable on the number of strikes, the number of deaths, and, importantly, the locations of strikes. This is not only down to the CIA’s secrecy concerning the operation, but also because in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where most of the attacks are taking place, the environment for outsiders and foreigners is nothing short of hostile.
The most comprehensive effort to scale the impact of the new drone war has been carried out by the New American Foundation which offers an interactive map based on the strikes. Due to this veil of ambiguity an empirical case cannot be fully made for either the US or Pakistan in this drone war. ‘No More Vietnams’ ‘Sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity’ [fb_button] 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. The US embassy senior officials including ambassador were summoned to the foreign office since 2008 to lodge the protests, the reply added. The ministry further stated that the US started to opt for drone attacks in tribal areas of Pakistan essentially from 2008 onwards. 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.
“I will be launching an investigation unit within the special procedures of the [U.N.] "No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” Says Man Who Regularly Bombs Pakistan and Yemen.