“Licensed to kill without accountability”
US drone attacks criticised in UN study on targeted killings
Philip Alston, the UN's special rapporteur for extrajudicial executions, said in a report released yesterday that the US, "the most prolific user of targeted killings" in the world, should halt the CIA's campaign of drone strikes in northwest Pakistan. He warned that the practice amounted to "a licence to kill without accountability".
US officials quickly defended the drones programme, citing Pakistani "acquiescence, if not support" and claiming that the strikes are "effective, exact, and essential".
In an accompanying statement to the report the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions also warned that the US was setting a damaging example that other countries would follow:
The United States, in particular, has put forward a novel theory that there is a ‘law of 9/11’ that enables it to legally use force in the territory of other States as part of its inherent right to self-defence on the basis that it is in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and ‘associated forces’, although the latter group is fluid and undefined. This expansive and open-ended interpretation of the right to self-defence goes a long way towards destroying the prohibition on the use of armed force contained in the UN Charter. If invoked by other States, in pursuit of those they deem to be terrorists and to have attacked them, it would cause chaos.
Alston's study on targeted killings sharply criticised the legal arguments invoked to justify them, their civilian death toll and the involvement of the CIA. “Intelligence agencies, which by definition are determined to remain unaccountable except to their own paymasters, have no place in running programmes that kill people in other countries", Alston told the Human Rights Council.
"In a situation in which there is no disclosure of who has been killed, for what reason, and whether innocent civilians have died, the legal principle of international accountability is, by definition, comprehensively violated," he added.
He also said the use of drone attacks risked creating a "Playstation" mentality towards killing, "because operators are based thousands of miles away from the battlefield, and undertake operations entirely through computer screens and remote audio-feed".
The United States is conducting drone attacks in Afghanistan and covertly in Pakistan's north western tribal belt, where US officials say Islamist extremists devise attacks on troops fighting in Afghanistan and on cities abroad.
Dr Ian Davis, Director of NATO Watch said, “This is one of the most critical assessments to date of US drone strikes, a tactic that has been stepped up significantly under the Obama administration. It is a wake-up call to the US and NATO allies to conduct a comprehensive review of the military and security roles of UAVs within the Alliance”. He added, “The UN report recommends that states publicly identify the rules of international law they consider to provide a basis for any targeted killings. NATO in consultation with Member States should do likewise. The Alliance should also examine the feasibility of developing an international ‘code of conduct’ or agreement to regulate and limit the use of drones”.
