Targeted killing, not assassination: the legal case for the United States to kill terrorist leaders

I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here. ARTHUR C. CLARKE (reproduced from an interview http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/aclarke.txt) The Vietnam War, during which American casualties ran extremely high, remains controversial in the United States. During the conflict, US forces estimated the strength of enemy forces based on the “SWAG” principle. At the war’s end, in a legal case, Colonel John Stewart took the stand. Lawyers grilled him, asking what, exactly, SWAG stood for. His reply, generating much amusement in the courtroom, was “Scientific Wild-Ass Guess.”...

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Death from Above

The Drone Age ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190635862.003.0003 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 55-95

Author(s):

Michael J. Boyle

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

The United States ◽

September 11 ◽

Al Qaeda ◽

Targeted Killing ◽

Conflict Zones ◽

Physical Risk ◽

September 11 Attacks

Chapter 3 argues that drones undermine the legal and ethical prohibitions on assassination and extrajudicial violence outside of wartime. It traces the emergence of the practice of targeted killing from its origin to its embrace by the United States after the September 11 attacks. It shows how the United States adopted the use of drones alongside the practice of targeted killing to control risks as it fought a new war against al Qaeda, but found itself gradually drifting into more conflict zones and fighting new enemies. While the United States used drones to protect its pilots from physical risk, it altered the nature of the risks they faced and created new ones for the population who live under the drones. Drones also subtly changed how the United States wages its wars, making it more willing to countenance killing people outside of active battlefields. It concludes by discussing how more countries are now experimenting with targeting killings.

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Seeing reason or seeing costs? The United States, counterterrorism, and the human rights of foreigners

European Journal of International Relations ◽

10.1177/13540661211063139 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 135406612110631

Author(s):

Monika Heupel ◽

Caiden Heaphy ◽

Janina Heaphy

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Human Rights ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

The United States ◽

Human Rights Violations ◽

Strategic Learning ◽

Targeted Killing ◽

Counter Terrorism ◽

Moral Persuasion ◽

Mass Surveillance

It is well known that in the wake of 9/11, the United States committed various extraterritorial human rights violations, that is, human rights violations against foreigners outside of its territory. What is less known is that the United States has gradually introduced safeguards that are, at least on paper, meant to prevent its counter-terrorism policies from causing harm to foreigners abroad or, at least, to mitigate such harm. Based on three case studies on the development of safeguards related to torture, targeted killing, and mass surveillance, we show that two mechanisms, coercion and strategic learning, deployed either on their own or in combination, can account for the development of such safeguards. By contrast, we found no evidence of a third mechanism, moral persuasion, having any direct effect. In other words, US policymakers opt to introduce such safeguards either when they face pressure from other states, courts, or civil society that makes immediate action necessary or when they anticipate that not introducing them will, at a later date, result in prohibitively high costs. We did not find evidence of US policymakers establishing safeguards because they deemed them morally appropriate. From this we conclude that, although the emerging norm that states have extraterritorial (and not just domestic) human rights obligations may not have been internalized by key US policymakers, it nevertheless has a regulative effect on them insofar as the fact that relevant others believe in the norm restricts their leeway and influences their cost–benefit calculations.

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Introduction

Debating Targeted Killing ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190906917.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Tamar Meisels ◽

Jeremy Waldron

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

The United States ◽

Targeted Killing ◽

Short Overview ◽

Government Power ◽

Civilian Immunity

The debate over targeted killing in this volume begins with a joint introduction by the authors, briefly setting out the terms of discussion, and presenting a short overview of the practice—what is targeted killing, and how has it been used, in which conflicts, and by whom. Following some historical examples, mostly from Israel and the United States, the authors distinguish between contemporary signature strikes and personality strikes, and focus their forthcoming debate on the latter, i.e., named killing. While this book touches on a wide array of issues, e.g., civilian immunity, drones, violation of sovereignty, abuse of government power, etc., the authors urge the reader early on to maintain a steadfast focus on the essence of targeted killing debated throughout, namely, the targeting for death of named and identified individuals by our states and leaders.

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Consular Immunities: the Kasenkina Case (U.S.–U.S.S.R.)

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/2193131 ◽

1949 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 37-56

Author(s):

Lawrence Preuss

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Soviet Union ◽

The United States ◽

Legal Issues ◽

Soviet Government ◽

Legal Principles ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Legal Case ◽

The Status

The recent Kasenkina and Samarin affairs, which led to a breach of consular relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, have raised a number of legal issues relating to the status of foreign consular officials. The legal principles involved, however, have been beclouded by widespread misunderstanding of the nature and scope of consular privileges and immunities, by obviously baseless charges made by the Soviet Government against that of the United States, and by the apparent reluctance of the latter to press to its fullest extent a sound legal case.

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Censorship

Communication ◽

10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0020 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Betty Houchin Winfield

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

National Security ◽

Large Body ◽

The United States ◽

Free Expression ◽

Legal Case ◽

Internet Censorship ◽

Government Secrecy ◽

Legal Controls ◽

Material Information

In a very large body of censorship scholarship spanning centuries, communication scholars point out that every civilization since antiquity has attempted to stop disagreeable expression. This bibliographic essay, focusing primarily on the United States, demonstrates that censorship can be institutional, individual, and by practice, a way to restrict or expunge objectionable material, information, or expression. Societies, as well as major institutions of the state, family, and church and their representatives, suppress expression thought to be dangerous, harmful, immoral, sensitive, or inconvenient. Historically, the research mostly focuses on political and legal censorship, which refers to any government restriction of the content of expression or its dissemination. Censorship can also be self-imposed. More recently, the research has emphasized corporate and Internet censorship. As a concept, censorship generally refers to three major areas of research: philosophical and legal controls juxtaposed with free expression values; theoretical constructs; and particular restrictions on specified media or content pushed by an organization or group. The kinds of controls are defined by governments or particular societal groups. The process of control can explain how suppression operates, such as by licensing as permission or approval to communicate or by government secrecy and closure of access to government meetings and information. Censorship has inhibited communication by punishments afterward with fines or imprisonment. The reasons for censorship can be numerous, most often in democratic societies to hide government malfeasance or as a necessity for survival during crises of national security and public safety. The following sections focus on censorship studies that would be useful for scholars: general overviews; references; ancient philosophical tenets to the later European basis, American foundations, legal case precedents, theoretical aspects, social responsibility expectations, restrictions by medium, crisis restrictions, and access issues; and self-censorship.

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Qassem Soleimani, Targeted Killing of State Actors, and Executive Order 12,333

Victoria University of Wellington Law Review ◽

10.26686/vuwlr.v52i1.6849 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 52 (1) ◽

pp. 163-196

Author(s):

Taran Molloy

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Armed Forces ◽

The United States ◽

Legal Framework ◽

United States Government ◽

Executive Order ◽

Military Leader ◽

Strong Argument ◽

Targeted Killing ◽

Jus Ad Bellum

The targeted killing of the Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani in an American drone strike in January 2020 marked a novel development in the operation of the United States' drone programme; targeting a member of a state's armed forces as opposed to a member of a non-state armed group. Soleimani's killing offers an opportunity to re-examine the scope of Executive Order 12,333, which prohibits employees of the United States Government from committing assassinations. This article applies Executive Order 12,333's "assassination ban" to the Soleimani strike. The assassination ban's scope varies depending on whether it is applied in a wartime or peacetime context. This article concludes from the surrounding factual and legal context that the strike should be analysed according to the peacetime definition of assassination, which necessitates an analysis of the strike's compliance with the jus ad bellum, the legal framework applicable to uses of interstate force. It finds that the strike's non-compliance with the jus ad bellum, in addition to its likely political motive create a strong argument that the strike would constitute a prohibited assassination under the terms of the Executive Order, but the legal framework surrounding the Executive Order limits its direct enforceability with respect to presidentially authorised uses of force. It ultimately concludes that, despite the assassination ban's lack of direct enforceability, it nevertheless creates a strong normative counterbalance against an increasing tendency toward expansive uses of extraterritorial force.

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The Confessional Seal

10.1093/oso/9780190889135.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Patrick W. Carey

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

New York ◽

New York City ◽

The United States ◽

Court Cases ◽

Legal Decision ◽

Legal Case ◽

American Legal System ◽

American Catholic ◽

Confession Of Sins

The chapter demonstrates how Catholic sacramental confession influenced the American legal system and expanded the notion of religious liberty in the United States. It describes a precedent-setting legal decision in New York City in 1813 on the confessional seal—that is, the priest’s canonical obligation to preserve the secrecy of a penitent’s confession of sins. A New York court in People v. Phillips declared that a priest who had learned of a crime through a penitent’s confession of sins was not obliged to reveal that information in a court trial. That legal decision was periodically cited in subsequent court cases in the United States and laid the grounds for subsequent statutory laws in various states that protected in particular the confessional seal and more generally clerical confidentiality. The legal case also became the occasion for the first major American Catholic apologetical attempt to defend the Catholic understanding of sacramental confession.

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