Targeted Killing
245 Articles
Letter to the Editor: Finding a Middle Ground on “Areas of Active Hostilities”
News that the Trump administration is close to revising the Obama-era policy on direct action against terrorist targets has reawakened the long-simmering debate over the appropriate…
Episode 42 of the National Security Law Podcast: The Magic Bullet Travel Ban(d)
In this week’s episode, Bobby Chesney and I start with a close look at Smith v. Trump, a case that seeks a judicial ruling on whether the Islamic State really falls within…
Amnesty Sets Out Key Principles on the Use of Armed Drones
There’s been a lot of discussion at Just Security about how international law applies to the use of armed drones, so I wanted to share here a new briefing paper that Amnesty…
Responding to Goodman’s Memo to the Human Rights Community: Context is Critical
I write to respond to Ryan Goodman’s recent post, “Why the Laws of War Apply to Drone Strikes Outside ‘Areas of Active Hostilities,’” and to remind readers where…
A Response to Goodman’s “Memo to the Human Rights Community”
Ryan Goodman’s “Memo to the Human Rights Community” is a perplexing critique that takes a surprising tone, coming from a former U.S. government official who worked on these…
Easing Restrictions on US Killings Outside War Zones Would be a Serious Mistake
President Donald Trump is poised to rescind some of the key rules crafted by the Obama administration that restrain the use of armed drones and other lethal operations outside…
How Obama’s Drones Rulebook Enabled Trump
In Trump’s New Drone Strike Policy: What’s Any Different? Why It Matters, Luke Hartig astutely flags some – but not all – of the key dangers in the Trump administration’s…
Global Group of Civil Society Organizations Raise Concerns about U.S.-led Drone Export Initiative
On Tuesday, 19 civil society organizations from around the world issued a joint statement with their concerns about a U.S.-led initiative that seeks to set out international standards…
Hidden from the Public: The United Kingdom’s Drone Warfare
The use of armed drones by the United States, both within the conflict zones of Iraq and Syria, and further afield in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, continues to be characterized…
U.S. Secrecy and Transparency in the Use of Lethal Force
Much of the news in the first few months of the Trump administration has been dominated by the Russia scandal, James Comey, and the President’s Twitter feed. Falling below…
Targeting Yemen and the Repeal of Obama Constraints
Over at the New York Times, Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt have written an excellent article on the Trump Administration’s decision to declare three parts of Yemen “areas…
Correcting the Record—Further Thoughts on the Intelligence Report on Civilian Casualties
In an exchange of posts over the past few weeks about the most recent casualty figures released by the Director of National Intelligence for theaters outside areas of active hostilities,…