Kenneth Roth: What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks?

But can the rationale based on war be stretched this far? Should the administration really have the right to attack anyone it might characterize as a combatant against the United States? What if that person is walking the streets of London or Paris? The administration, in a statement by John Brennan, says as a matter of policy that it has an “unqualified preference” to capture rather than kill all targets. But away from a traditional battlefield, international human rights law requires the capture of enemies if possible.2 Failing to apply that law encourages other governments to circumvent it as well; they may summarily kill suspects simply by announcing a “global war” without there being an actual armed conflict. Imagine the mayhem that Russia could cause by killing alleged Chechen “combatants” throughout Europe, or China by killing Uighur “combatants” in the United States. Indeed, China may already be applying this elastic definition of war, as it reportedly considered using a drone to kill a drug trafficker in Burma.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.