scholarly journals Targeted killing with drones? Old arguments, new technologies

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16
Author(s):  
Tamar Meisels
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Measure ◽  
Moral Argument ◽  
Targeted Killing ◽  
Counter Terrorism

The question of how to contend with terrorism in keeping with our preexisting moral and legal commitments now challenges Europe as well as Israel and the United States: how do we apply Just War Theory and International Law to asymmetrical warfare, specifically to our counter terrorism measures? What can the classic moral argument in Just and Unjust Wars teach us about contemporary targeted killings with drones? I begin with a defense of targeted killing, arguing for the advantages of pin pointed attacks over any alternative measure available for combatting terrorism. Assuming the legitimacy of killing combatants in wartime, I argue, there is nothing wrong, and in fact much that is right, with targeting particular terrorists selected by name, as long as their assassinations can be reasonably expected to reduce terrorist hostilities rather than increase it. Subsequently, I offer some further thoughts and comments on the use of remotely piloted aircrafts to carry out targeted killings, and address the various sources for discomfort with this practice identified by Michael Walzer and others.

Seeing reason or seeing costs? The United States, counterterrorism, and the human rights of foreigners

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406612110631
Author(s):  
Monika Heupel ◽  
Caiden Heaphy ◽  
Janina Heaphy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Strategic Learning ◽  
Targeted Killing ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Moral Persuasion ◽  
Mass Surveillance

It is well known that in the wake of 9/11, the United States committed various extraterritorial human rights violations, that is, human rights violations against foreigners outside of its territory. What is less known is that the United States has gradually introduced safeguards that are, at least on paper, meant to prevent its counter-terrorism policies from causing harm to foreigners abroad or, at least, to mitigate such harm. Based on three case studies on the development of safeguards related to torture, targeted killing, and mass surveillance, we show that two mechanisms, coercion and strategic learning, deployed either on their own or in combination, can account for the development of such safeguards. By contrast, we found no evidence of a third mechanism, moral persuasion, having any direct effect. In other words, US policymakers opt to introduce such safeguards either when they face pressure from other states, courts, or civil society that makes immediate action necessary or when they anticipate that not introducing them will, at a later date, result in prohibitively high costs. We did not find evidence of US policymakers establishing safeguards because they deemed them morally appropriate. From this we conclude that, although the emerging norm that states have extraterritorial (and not just domestic) human rights obligations may not have been internalized by key US policymakers, it nevertheless has a regulative effect on them insofar as the fact that relevant others believe in the norm restricts their leeway and influences their cost–benefit calculations.

Medical immunity, international law and just war theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 165 (4) ◽  
pp. 256-265
Author(s):  
Fritz Allhoff ◽  
K Potts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
The United States ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Control Centre ◽  
Intentional Attack

Under customary international law, the First Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol I, medical personnel are protected against intentional attack. In § 1 of this paper, we survey these legal norms and situate them within the broader international humanitarian law framework. In § 2, we explore the historical and philosophical basis of medical immunity, both of which have been underexplored in the academic literature. In § 3, we analyse these norms as applied to an attack in Afghanistan (2015) by the United States; the United States was attempting to target a Taliban command-and-control centre but inadvertently destroyed a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital instead, killing 42 people. In § 4, we consider forfeiture of medical immunity and, more sceptically, whether supreme emergency could justify infringement of non-forfeited protected status.

Extremism and Confusion in American Views about the Ethics of War: A Comment on Sagan and Valentino

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff McMahan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
The Law ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants

AbstractIn their article “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants,” Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino have revealed a wealth of information about the views of contemporary Americans on the ethics of war. Virtually all they have discovered is surprising and much of it is alarming. My commentary in this symposium seeks mainly to extract a bit more from their data and to draw a few further inferences. Among the striking features of Sagan and Valentino's data are that the views of Americans tend to cluster at the extreme ends of the spectrum of possible views about the ethics of war, that an apparent sympathy for pacifism coexists with harshly punitive views about the treatment of soldiers, and that few of those surveyed appear to have given any thought to the implications of the views they expressed for what it might be permissible for enemies of the United States to do to captured American soldiers. The commentary concludes by arguing that Sagan and Valentino's findings do not, as they argue, support the fear that is sometimes expressed that a wider acceptance of revisionist just war theory, and in particular its incorporation into the law, would make the practice of war even more barbarous than it already is.

Debating Targeted Killing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Meisels ◽  
Jeremy Waldron
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Targeted Killing ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Right

In this “for and against” book, Jeremy Waldron and Tamar Meisels defend competing positions on the legitimacy of targeted killing. The volume begins with a joint introduction, briefly setting out the terms of discussion, and presenting a short historical overview of the practice—i.e. what is targeted killing, and how has it been used in which conflicts and by whom. The debate opens with Meisels’ defense of targeted killing as a legitimate and desirable defensive anti-terrorism strategy, in keeping with both just war theory and international law. Meisels unreservedly defends the named killing of irregular combatants, most notably terrorists, during armed conflict. Additionally, she offers a possible moral justification for rare instances of assassination outside that framework, specifically with reference to recent cases of nuclear scientists developing weapons of mass destruction for the Iranian and Syrian governments. The debate continues with Waldron’s arguments focusing on the dangers and the inherent wrongness of governments’ having the right to maintain death lists—lists of named individuals who are to be hunted down and killed. Waldron notes the many differences between individualized targeting and ordinary combat, and he resists the attempt to assimilate targeted killing to killings in combat. Waldron also cautions us to consider carefully what a world of targeted killings will be like, the many abuses it is liable to, and why we should be very cautious, morally and strategically, in our thinking about it.

Drone Warfare

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Robert Paul Churchill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
The Status ◽  
Drone Strikes ◽  
Drone Warfare ◽  
To Receive

The United States is now relying on Reaper and Predator drone strikes as its primary strategy in the continuing War on Terrorism. This paper argues for the rational scrutiny drone warfare has yet to receive. It is argued that drone warfare is immoral as it fails both the jus in bello and the jus ad bellum conditions of Just War theory. Drone warfare cannot be accepted on utilitarian grounds either, as it is very probable that terrorists will acquire drones capable of lethal strikes and deploy them against defenseless civilians. Moreover, by examining the psychological bases for reliance on drone warfare, as well as the message the United States is sending adversaries, we need to be concerned that, rather than reduce the likelihood of terrorists strikes, the U.S. reliance on drones strikes threatens to institutionalize terrorism as the status quo for the foreseeable future.

Bangladesh and the Theory of Just War

Worldview ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 39-41
Author(s):  
Ernest W. Ranly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Just War ◽  
Saint Augustine ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Theology

It is widely believed that in the recent India-Pakistan conflict the United States backed the wrong, that is, the losing, side. Not enough attention has been paid the possibility that the United States backed the wrong, that is, the immoral, side. This is an effort to look at that possibility within the framework of the traditional “just war theory,” a theory that may turn out to be a great deal more serviceable than its contemporary critics suggest.The principles governing a just war were first spelled out by Saint Augustine and are an integral part of scholastic moral theology even today when the whole theory has been subjected to a new and rigorous scrutiny.

10 War Powers and the War on Terrorism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley Curtis A
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Targeted Killing ◽  
War Powers ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The U.S

This chapter considers the relevance of international law within the U.S. legal system to the United States’ initiation and conduct of war. After briefly reviewing some of the most relevant treaties relating to war and warfare, the chapter considers the Constitution’s distribution of war authority between Congress and the President. It then discusses how international law, including the provisions in the UN Charter relating to the authority of the Security Council, as well as collective self-defense treaties, might affect the President’s war authority. The chapter then shifts to the “war on terrorism” and discusses the relevance of international law, including the Geneva Conventions, to issues concerning the scope of the military’s detention authority in that conflict, with particular reference to the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. International law and other issues relating to the use of military commissions to try terrorist suspects are also considered. The chapter concludes by discussing legal debates relating to coercive interrogation and targeted killing.

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