Drone strikes threaten
50 years of international law, says UN rapporteur
Owen Bowcott in Geneva,
Thursday 21 June 2012
(the U.S. practice of using drone was again brought
to U.N.)
Mr. Christof Heyns (South Africa), Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,
summary or arbitrary executions, since 1st August 2010, says US policy of
using drone strikes to carry out targeted killings 'may encourage other states
to flout international law'
Christof Heyns, the UN
special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions,
told a conference in Geneva that President Obama's attacks in Pakistan, Yemen
and elsewhere, carried out by the CIA, would encourage other states to flout
long-established human rights standards.
In his strongest
critique so far of drone strikes, Heyns suggested some may even constitute
"war crimes".
Addressing the
conference, which was organised by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a
second UN rapporteur, Ben
Emmerson QC, who monitors counter-terrorism, announced he would be
prioritising inquiries into drone strikes.
The London-based
barrister said the issue was moving rapidly up the international agenda after China and Russia this week
jointly issued a statement at the UN
Human Rights Council, backed by other countries, condemning drone
attacks.
Also present was Pakistan's ambassador to the UN in
Geneva, Zamir Akram, who called
for international legal action to halt the "totally counterproductive
attacks" by the US in his country. (stakeholders)
Killings may be lawful
in an armed conflict [such as Afghanistan] but many targeted killings take
place far from areas where it's recognised as being an armed conflict."
(geographical stretch)
If it is true, he
said, that "there have been secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping
(the injured) after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war
crime". (civilian casualty)
Heyns ridiculed the US
suggestion that targeted UAV strikes on al-Qaida or allied groups were a
legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks. "It's difficult to see how any killings
carried out in 2012 can be justified as in response to [events] in 2001," (justification)
"The targeting is
often operated by intelligence agencies which fall outside the scope of accountability. The term 'targeted killing' is wrong because
it suggests little violence has occurred. The collateral damage may be less
than aerial bombardment, but because they eliminate the risk to soldiers they
can be used more often." (signature
killing)
Heyns told the
Guardian later that his future inquiries are likely to include the question of
whether other countries, such as the UK, share intelligence with the US that
could be used for selecting individuals as targets. A legal case has already
been lodged in London over the UK's alleged role in the deaths of
British citizens and others as a consequence of US drone strikes in
Pakistan.
The Pakistani
ambassador declared that more than a thousand civilians had been killed
in his country by US drone strikes.
Claims made by the US
about the accuracy of drone strikes were "totally incorrect", he
added
On Wednesday, the
Obama administration issued a fresh rebuff through the US courts to an ACLU
request for information about targeting policies
The ACLU estimates
that as many as 4,000 people have been killed in US drone strikes since
2002 in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Of those, a significant proportion were
civilians. The numbers killed have escalated significantly since Obama became
president.
One of the latest UAV
developments that concerns human rights groups is the way in which attacks,
they allege, have moved towards targeting groups based on perceived patterns of
behaviour that look suspicious from aerial surveillance, rather than relying on
intelligence about specific al-Qaida activists.
Report of the Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston
