Will UN Drone Inquiry get to the heart of the matter?
By Chris Cole
Ben Emmerson announces UN inquiry into use of drones
The UN inquiry into the use of armed drones for targeted
killing, announced yesterday by London-based UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism
and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson, is very
much to be welcomed.
Undertaken at the direct request of several states, the
inquiry is also in response to what Mr Emmerson called “the increasing
international concern surrounding the issue of remote targeted killing through
the use of UAVs.”
In a statement Ben Emmerson said
”The exponential
rise in the use of drone technology in a variety of military and non-military
contexts represents a real challenge to the framework of established international
law and it is both right as a matter of principle, and inevitable as a matter
of political reality, that the international community should now be focussing
attention on the standards applicable to this technological development,
particularly its deployment in counterterrorism and counter-insurgency
initiatives, and attempt to reach a consensus on the legality of its use, and
the standards and safeguards which should apply to it.
The inquiry will examine 25 case studies of drone strikes
that have taken place in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Palestine in
order to:
”look at the
evidence that drone strikes and other forms of remote targeted killing have
caused disproportionate civilian casualties in some instances, and to make
recommendations concerning the duty of States to conduct thorough independent
and impartial investigations to such allegations such allegations, with a view
to securing accountability and reparation where things can be shown to have
gone badly wrong with potentially grave consequences for civilians.”
This inquiry then is
very much to be welcomed and will hopefully make an important contribution to our understanding
of the use of armed drones.
However the inquiry will make a real impact if it also
addresses some of the wider questions about the growing use of drones,
questions that go beyond the issue of targeted killing. As we have written before targeted killing,
while being an extremely serious issue, is only part of the problem. The wider problem is that armed unmanned
drones lower the political cost of military intervention as a whole and make it
far too easy for political leaders to choose the lethal, military solution
rather than a political or diplomatic option.
While Mr Emmerson as UN Special Rapporteur has a mandate to
look at human rights issues, the wider
political and global security
implications of the growing use of armed drones are also hugely important. And , it is perhaps important to point out,
they too have a bearing on the human rights of those caught up in the so-called
‘risk free’ warfare.
Given the relative
ease with which this technology can be deployed, and given its relatively low
cost (both in economic terms, and in terms of risk to the lives of service
personnel of the states deploying the technology) the issue now has to be
confronted squarely by the international community… [T]hese legal questions are
not confined to the use of drones… but it is the use of drones which has
propelled this issue to the top of the international agenda because they can
and have been used with such apparent ease and frequency to devastating
effect…”
Also in his interview on the BBC programme The World at One,
Mr Emmerson also added that
“the real issue is
that the frequency and ease with which they [drones] can be resorted to carries with it the risk that there may be an
unacceptable high level of risk of civilian casualties given that the
technology is deploy in densely populated civilian areas”
No doubt Mr Emmerson and his team will be under great
pressure to limit the scope of the inquiry and to take a narrow definition of
the human rights implications of drone strikes and look simply at whether
particular strikes ‘have gone wrong’.
If that is the case this will be a missed opportunity.
The implication of the growing use – and proliferation – of
armed drones for global security as well as their impact on human rights is
very severe. Mr Emmerson and his team
have a huge responsibility to get this right.
List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and
Yemen
Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports
PAKISTAN Name | Age | Gender Noor Aziz | 8 | male Abdul
Wasit | 17 | male Noor Syed | 8 | male Wajid Noor | 9 | male Syed Wali Shah | 7
| male Ayeesha | 3 | female Qari Alamzeb | 14| male Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male Tariq Aziz | 16 | male Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female Nasir Khan | male Naeem Khan | male Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male Azizul Wahab | 15 | male Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male Fazal Hakim | 19 | male Ilyas |
13 | male Sohail | 7 | male Asadullah | 9 | male khalilullah | 9 | male Noor
Mohammad | 8 | male Khalid | 12 | male Saifullah | 9 | male Mashooq Jan | 15 |
male Nawab | 17 | male Sultanat Khan | 16 | male Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male Noor
Mohammad | 15 | male Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male Abdullah | 18 | male Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male Shahbuddin | 15 | male Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male Mohammad Salim | 11 | male Shahjehan | 15 | male Gul Sher
Khan | 15 | male Bakht Muneer | 14 | male Numair | 14 | male Mashooq Khan | 16
| male Ihsanullah | 16 | male Luqman | 12 | male Jannatullah | 13 | male Ismail
| 12 | male Taseel Khan | 18 | male Zaheeruddin | 16 | male Qari Ishaq | 19 |
male Jamshed Khan | 14 | male Alam Nabi | 11 | male Qari Abdul Karim | 19 |
male Rahmatullah | 14 | male Abdus Samad | 17 | male Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male Abdul Waris | 16 | male Darvesh | 13 | male Ameer Said |
15 | male Shaukat | 14 | male Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male Baacha Rahman | 13 | male Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male Inayatullah | 15 | male Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male Luqman | 12 | male Jannatullah | 13 | male Ismail | 12 |
male Abdul Waris | 16 | male Darvesh | 13 | male Ameer Said | 15 | male Shaukat
| 14 | male Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male Adnan | 16 | male Najibullah | 13 |
male Naeemullah | 17 | male Hizbullah | 10 | male Kitab Gul | 12 | male Wilayat
Khan | 11 | male Zabihullah | 16 | male Shehzad Gul | 11 | male Shabir | 15 |
male Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male Shafiullah | 16 | male Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male Talha | 8 | male
YEMEN Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female Zayda Ali
Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female Sheikha Ali
Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem
Louqye | 4 | female Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female Khadije
Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female Mohammed
Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 |
female Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female Maha Mohammed Saleh
Mohammed | 12 | male Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female Shafika
Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 |
male Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male Nasser Salim | 19
Source: droneswatch
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