[E-rundbrief] Info 923 - UN-demand to halt CIA targeted killings

Matthias Reichl info at begegnungszentrum.at
So Jun 6 21:03:12 CEST 2010


E-Rundbrief - Info 923 - William Fisher (IPS): U.N. Expert Calls On U.S. 
To Halt CIA Targeted Killings.

Bad Ischl, 6.6.2010

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U.N. Expert Calls On U.S. To Halt CIA Targeted Killings

William Fisher

NEW YORK, Jun 2  (IPS)  - Targeted killings, including those using
drones, are increasingly being applied in ways that violate
international law, according to a report issued Wednesday by a United
Nations expert on extrajudicial killings.

The report by special rapporteur Philip Alston will be presented to the
U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday. It says that while
targeted killings may be permitted in armed conflict situations when
used against combatants, fighters or civilians who directly engage in
combat-like activities, they are increasingly being used far from any
battlefield.

It states that ”this strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill
without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or
other States can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed
to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial killings”.

Alston also criticised the U.S. invocation of the ”law of
9/11”, which it uses to justify the use of force outside of armed-
   conflict zones as part of the so-called global war on terrorism.

The report called for the United States and other countries to end the
”accountability vacuum” by disclosing the full legal basis for targeted
killings and specifically the measures in place to ensure wrongful
killings are investigated, prosecuted and punished.

In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the
report ”underscores the alarming legal questions raised by the U.S.
program of targeting and killing people - including U.S. citizens -
sometimes far from any battlefield”.

Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Programme, said, ”The
U.S. should heed the recommendations of the rapporteur and disclose the
full legal basis of the U.S. targeted killings programme, and it should
abide by international law.”

”The entire world is not a battlefield, and the government cannot use
quintessentially warlike measures anywhere in the world that it believes
a suspected terrorist might be located,” he added.

In March, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
demanding that the government disclose the legal basis for its use of
unmanned drones to conduct targeted killings overseas, and in April sent
a letter to President Barack Obama condemning the U.S. policy on
targeted killings and urging him to bring it into compliance with
international and domestic law.

”The U.S. programme of targeted killing outside of armed conflict zones
is illegal and raises serious policy questions that ought to be debated
publicly,” said Jonathan Manes, legal fellow with the ACLU National
Security Project.

”In addition to the legal basis, scope and limits of the programme, the
Obama administration should disclose how many civilians have been
killed, how the programme is overseen, and what accountability
mechanisms exist over the CIA and others who conduct the targeted
killings,” he said.

While welcoming an initial effort by the administration of President
Barack Obama to offer a legal justification for drone strikes to kill
suspected terrorists overseas, human rights groups say critical
questions remain unanswered.

In an address to an international law group in March, State Department
Legal Adviser Harold Koh insisted that such operations were being
conducted in full compliance with international law.

”The U.S. is in armed conflict with al Qaeda as well as the Taliban and
associated forces in response to the horrific acts of 9/11 and may use
force consistent with its right to self-defence under international
law,” he said. ”...Individuals who are part of such armed groups are
belligerents and, therefore, lawful targets under international law.”

Moreover, he went on, ”U.S. targeting practices, including lethal
operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, comply
with all applicable law, including the laws of war,” which require
limiting attacks to military objectives and that the damage caused to
civilians by those attacks would not be excessive.

While right-wing commentators expressed satisfaction with Koh's
evocation of the ”right to self-defence” - the same justification used
by President George W. Bush - human rights groups were circumspect.

Drone attacks, which have increased significantly under Obama, are
widely considered to have become the single-most effective weapon in
Washington's campaign disrupt al Qaeda and affiliated groups, especially
in the frontier areas of western Pakistan.

In Obama's first year in office, more strikes were carried out than in
the previous eight years under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), they reportedly
killed ”several hundred” al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban militants since
Obama took office in 2009, forcing many of them to flee their border
hideouts for large cities where precision attacks would be much harder
to carry out without causing heavy civilian casualties.

While noting criticism that the use of lethal force against some
individuals far removed from the battlefield could amount to an
”unlawful extra-judicial killing”, Koh - who was one of the harshest and
most outspoken critics of the Bush administration's legal tactics in its
”global war on terror” - insisted that ”a state that is engaged in an
armed conflict or in legitimate self-defence is not required to provide
targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force”.

”Our procedures and practices for identifying lawful targets are
extremely robust, and advanced technologies have helped to make our
targeting even more precise,” he said.

Alston, the U.N. rapporteur, was far from satisfied with these
assurances, however, calling Koh's statement ”evasive”.

He ”was essentially arguing that 'You've got to trust us. I've looked at
this very carefully. I'm very sensitive to these issues. And all is
well,'” he told an interviewer on 'Democracy Now' in March.

In a statement Wednesday, Alston noted that ”some 40 states already
possess drone technology, and some already have, or are seeking, the
capacity to fire missiles from them.”

However, he stressed that, ”The most prolific user of targeted killings
today is the United States, which primarily uses drones for attacks.”

”It is clear that many hundreds of people have been killed, and that
this number includes some innocent civilians. Because the programme
remains shrouded in official secrecy, the international community does
not know when and where the CIA is authorised to kill, the criteria for
individuals who may be killed, how it ensures killings are legal, and
what follow-up there is when civilians are illegally killed,” he said.

+ Special Rapporteur study on targeted killings

(http://www.extrajudicialexecutions.org/application/media/14%20HRC%20Targeted%20Killings%20Report%20(A.HRC.14.24.Add6)
   .pdf)

(END/IPS/WD/NA/IP/HD/AN/DK/EL/PK/UN/WF/KS/10)

NNNN

with the compliments of

federico nier-fischer
fnf-comunicaciones

- editor ips-columnists service (german desk);
- consultant/project management intercultural communications;
- academic lectures on "Kulturindustrie", alternative media, 
international news agencies,
the globalization of news and media, ...

fnf_comunicaciones at fastmail.fm


-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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