Targeted Killing
242 Articles
A brief response to Gabor Rona on the use of force by non-military personnel
Gabor Rona is correct, of course, that (absent a later-in-time statutory override) U.S. use of force must comply with international law, regardless of the identity of the U.S.…
When Considering CIA Targeted Killings, Don’t Forget International Law!
Last week, Marty Lederman addressed the legality and wisdom of CIA engagement in targeted killings under domestic law. Applicable international law, however, suggests that CIA…
How Should International Law Deal With Doubt in the Era of Drones and Big Data?
Recent reports on the NSA’s use of metadata and machine learning to generate intelligence for drone strikes in Pakistan spotlights the somewhat less-discussed legal concerns…
D.C. Circuit Quietly Set to Hear Major National Security Appeals
Given the rather significant legal news of the past four days, it’s easy to forget that a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit (Tatel, Griffith, & Sentelle, JJ.) is…
The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Geographical Scope of Human Rights Law
On January 21, a British investigation concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably” approved the poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died…
Still Secret: Second Circuit Keeps More Drone Memos From the Public
Secret law has been anathema to our democracy since its Founding, but a federal appeals court just gave us more of it. Almost two centuries ago, James Madison wrote that “[a]…
The Assassination Ban and Targeted Killings
In public speeches, administration officials have criticized the use of the word “assassination” to characterize targeted killings carried out by the United States. The administration’s…
The Imperative of a “Drone Court”
With the recent release of The Intercept’s Drone Papers, it is an apt time to revisit the imperative of creating a check on an executive branch exercising lethal force without…
Drone Disclosures, Official and Not
As readers of this blog already know, last week The Intercept published a series of fascinating stories about the US drone campaign. The stories, and the official documents that…
Precision Weapons, Mistakes, and the Need for Transparency
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…
European Countries Are Edging Toward Their Own War on Terror
A version of this article first appeared on the European Council on Foreign Relations website. The United States looks less lonely in its use of drone strikes against terrorist…
The UK’s Letter to the UN Security Council Leaves Plenty of Unanswered Questions About Last Month’s RAF Drone Strike
Yesterday, I wrote a post helping to untangle some of the international law questions involved in last month’s UK drone strike in Syria that killed three individuals, two of…