Ethics, Law and Justifying Targeted Killings: The Obama Administration at War by Jack McDonald

Author:Jack McDonald [McDonald, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Philosophy, International, Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Political Science, Security (National & International), Law, General
ISBN: 9781317239574
Google: JdnLDAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 31381522
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

Network membership and direct participation

The primary legal prohibition relevant to targeted killings in IHL is the legal status of those targeted by the United States. The principle of distinction means that it is fundamentally illegal to target civilians; the principle is ‘the most significant battlefield concept a combatant must observe’.43 We have already seen how the United States defines members of al-Qaeda as a militant group that poses a threat that warrants the use of military force (see p. 34–5); however, beyond this, at a legal level, this means determining whether individuals are participants in an armed conflict, and whether this means that they lose the protections that are afforded civilians.

The targeting of individuals, rather than an anonymous group, is important in targeted killings. John Yoo argues that the targeting of individuals has always been legitimate.44 Notably, Yoo also relies on the example of airstrikes directed against Libya in 1986, stating that they were targeted at Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, which is explicitly denied by William Hays Parks (who was part of that decision process).45 Yoo conflates the tactical targeting of individuals on battlefields with the strategic practice of targeted killing policies conducted against groups and terrorist networks. Here, the key differentiation is between the battlefield targeting of anonymous but self-identified enemies, and known, unilaterally identified enemies. This process may appear tautological at first, but it is important because the manner in which persons are identified as enemies by placement with an opposing force, and the identification of individuals as enemies by process of individuation and network targeting, produce two different identities of enemy: the anonymous soldier, and the personally identified individual (terrorist). The key differential is the process of identifying individuals as legitimate targets of attack. States such as Israel and the United States argue that they must target individuals identified as belonging to terrorist networks with lethal force, because otherwise they are unable to target these groups.

The Obama administration’s defence of targeted killings therefore relies on two elements: first, an interpretation of IHL that permits persons to be targeted as if they were no different to, say, an armed guerrilla in a firefight; and second, the targeting process involved allows for the United States to unilaterally make such judgements. One key differentiating factor is the role of knowledge in the practice of targeted killings, which is different than that of conventional warfare. Key to this are the sets of knowledge that identify a person as a legitimate target in conventional warfare and targeted killings. The logic contained within treaty IHL reflects its origins in the eighteenth-century battlefield. Arguments about IHL are rooted in informal logic, which is described by Anthony Blair and Ralph Johnson as being ‘the normative study of argument. It is the area of logic which seeks to develop standards, criteria and procedures for the interpretation, evaluation and construction of arguments and argumentation used in natural language’.46 Within the frameworks of IHL, there are a number of points that are mutually agreed on. One is that

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