Targeted Killing
245 Articles
Petitions, Human Rights, and Government Service
In recent weeks I was asked to sign a petition circulated by Sarah Cleveland and Mike Posner strongly defending Harold Koh’s role and offering their views on the integrity…
Just Security’s Guide to the 2016 Presidential Candidates and National Security
The 2016 presidential election is more than 18 months away, but the races are already heating up with Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Hillary Clinton in the running so far.…
Harold Koh and the Battle of the Dueling Petitions
Last month NYU students and others sent a petition to the Dean of Law and the President of NYU calling Harold Koh’s “presence at NYU Law and, in particular, as a professor…
Rethinking How We Wage the Forever War
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…
More on Flawed Research and Flawed Counterterrorism Policies
I want to concur with the thoughtful views articulated by Michael German last week addressing terrorism and counterterrorism research. Having spent twenty years working and researching…
Drone Strike Kills al-Qaeda Cleric in Yemen—But are clerics lawful military targets?
A U.S. drone strike has reportedly killed a leading cleric of al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen. A religious theologian, Ibrahim al-Rubaysh had risen to the level of top cleric or Mufti…
The Targeted Killing That Wasn’t: What We Can Learn From the Case of Mohanad Mahmoud al-Farekh
A 2009 US Air Force photo titled “Ready to hunt” shows an armed MQ-9 Reaper drone taxiing in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Almost two weeks ago, we learned from the Washington…
No Asking and No Telling – A Quick Thought on Stephen Preston’s Speech at ASIL
As Marty Lederman and Jennifer Daskel have already noted, the Department of Defense’s General Counsel Stephen Preston gave an extensive and lengthy keynote speech on Friday last at…
Whatever became of the Votel transparency proposal concerning drone strikes in Yemen?
The Open Society Justice Initiative yesterday released a report alleging that nine U.S. drone strikes in Yemen between May 2012 and April 2014 each resulted in civilian casualties,…
The Unreal Secrecy About Drone Killings
Last year, after concluding that many passages in the document “no longer merited secrecy,” the Second Circuit published a redacted version of the Justice Department’s July…
Killing With Military Equipment Disguised as Civilian Objects is Perfidy, Part II
On Friday, I concluded that modifying a civilian-looking vehicle into a military object to attack an adversary could indeed amount to perfidy during an international armed conflict.…
Killing With Military Equipment Disguised as Civilian Objects is Perfidy
The Washington Post earlier this year revealed US involvement in a 2008 Israeli operation that killed Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyah in a Damascus parking lot. In discussing various…