PKSOI/GLOBAL TRENDS CASE STUDIES A Drone's Strike Away | Page 16

Case Study #1118-08
PKSOI TRENDS GLOBAL CASE STUDY SERIES
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) agreed, “The president, a politician, Republican or Democrat, should never get to decide some-
one’s death by flipping through some flash cards and saying, ‘You want to kill him? Yeah, let’s go ahead and kill him’.” 125
Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks went even a step further and suggested establishing a special court to review
drone strikes:
If Congress were to create a statutory cause of action for damages for those who had been killed in abusive or
mistaken drone strikes, you would have a court that would review such strikes after the fact. [That would]
create a pretty good mechanism that would frankly keep the executive branch as honest as we hope it is already
and as we hope it will continue to be into administrations to come. 126
Human Rights
There has been mounting criticism from human rights and civil-liberties groups claiming violations of “due process” in
targeted assassinations. Jamil Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU speaking in reference to a 2012 lawsuit over the
drone killing of three American citizens in Yemen, said, “This suit is an effort to enforce the Constitution’s most funda-
mental guarantee, the guarantee of due process. Ten years ago extrajudicial killing by the United States was exceptional.
Now it’s routine.” 127
While the American public, for the most part, seems content that the secret war to protect them from their enemies is
going pretty well, concerns over the unintended consequences of drone warfare are mounting. A May 2015 Pew Re-
search Center survey found that 58% of Americans “approve of the US conducting missile strikes from drones to target
extremists in such countries as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. About a third (35%) disapproved of US drone attacks.” 128
Despite support for drone strikes – particularly if those lower the risk of losing American lives – nearly half of those
surveyed (48%) “say they are very concerned that US drone strikes endanger the lives of innocent civilians, while anoth-
er 32% say they are somewhat concerned about this.” However, the public “expresses less concern over other potential
consequences of US drone attacks. About three-in-ten or fewer say they are very concerned US strikes could lead to re-
taliation from extremist groups (31%), that they are being conducted legally (29%) or that they could damage America’s
reputation around the world (24%).” 129
Humanitarian Law
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),
Under international humanitarian law – the rules of war, i.e. the set of laws governing armed conflicts –
drones are not expressly prohibited, nor are they considered to be inherently indiscriminate or perfidious. In
this respect, they are no different from weapons launched from manned aircraft such as helicopters or other
combat aircraft. It is important to emphasize, however, that while drones are not unlawful in themselves, their
use is subject to international law. 130
According to Steven Groves, research fellow at the conservative, London-based Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom,
“Critics of US drone strikes generally maintain that transnational terrorism should be treated as a law enforcement
matter and that individual terrorists should be arrested and tried as common criminals. Such critics often claim that the
United States is not engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda that is recognized by international law and therefore
is not justified in using lethal force except under highly restrictive, arguably prohibitive, circumstances.” 131 However,
ICRC President Peter Maurer points out that,
When using drones, parties to a conflict must always distinguish between combatants and civilians and
between military objectives and civilian objects. They must take all feasible precautions in order to spare the
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