Drone Strikes Threaten 50 Years of International Law, Says UN Rapporteur (Possible War Crimes) [View all]

[morningfog]

The US policy of using drone strikes to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war, a UN investigator has said.

Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, fears that Barack Obama's CIA-run programmes in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere will encourage other states to flout long-established international human rights law.

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"Killings may be lawful in an armed conflict but many targeted killings take place far from areas where it's recognised as being an armed conflict."

If "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."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/21/drone-strikes-international-law-un