America’s robotic warfare has spawned the death knell of heretofore reverential words, phrases and institutions, words, phrases and institutions such as sovereignty, freedom, human rights, due process, legal representation for the accused, adjudication of law, The Hague and Geneva Conventions.

 Citing ‘international law and decorum at grave risk’, a new global campaign to persuade nations to bar ‘killer Robots’ prior to the production stage with assured proliferation is to be launched in the UK by a group of academics, international jurists, pressure groups and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates according to an article in the Guardian by Tracy McVeigh and dated 2/23/13.

According to the UN, American drones killed more Afghan civilians in 2012. Kim Gamel, writing for the Associated Press on 2/20/13 said that drone strikes rose sharply in Afghanistan last year. In 2012, 506 weapons were released compared to 294 the previous year. Civilian deaths rose 13% to 4431 according to UNAMA. Jason Ditz writing for Antiwar.com wrote on 6/24/13 that in 2013 drone strikes in Afghanistan increased 72% and that drone strikes are killing several times more civilian bystanders than in recent years. US Drone strikes killed 2100 civilians in Pakistan’s tiny province of North Waziristan, reported on 12/10/13 by Jason Ditz in an article for Anti-War.com. Without doubt, and for many of the world’s citizens, the CIA has become a ‘Para-militarized Killing Machine’.

From secret locations in the United States and from US bases abroad, a technician monitoring a grainy image on a computer screen decides who is to live and who is to die. Criteria for attack, as has been demonstrated, can be nothing more than activity by a group, activity that in one case resulted in 47 Afghans civilians attending a burial ceremony to be killed by a drone strike, and the killing of a shepherd-boy herding his flock of sheep while yielding a stick that in length and shown on a grainy monitor, resembles the ubiquitous, early 20^th Century No. 1-MKIII .303 British Enfield rifles that are so widely seen and available both in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.  When a launch is decided upon there is no due process or court trial, nor any defense representation or mechanism initiated for the accused. And often times, life or death rests on nothing more than the fabricated intelligence or say-so of political adversaries such as the Northern Alliance, ever anxious to utilize American military technology to dispatch and advance their ethno-centric anti-Pashtun bias.

When a strike is dispatched, a soaring Predator Drone circumambulates the area where the target is located or alleged to be, again, relying on a grainy monitor image, the operator electronically orders the Predator Drone to fire ‘Hellfire’ missiles at the intended target. Suffice it to say, the legal questions that arise are legion in scope. That the US, can willfully broach any nation’s borders and assassinate those they allege to be terrorists is extraordinary in legal terms. This lack of respect for a nation’s sovereignty and international law has international jurists and human rights organizations very concerned and has induced a number of legal challenges and protests.

There is even a concern that the President of the United States can order the assassination of any citizen in any country in the world to include American citizens.

There exist a number of international institutions that seek to protect innocent civilians during a time of war. The United States is signatory to a number of jurist oriented conventions contained within the body of the Documents on the Laws of War, as codified, signed and ratified in a number of international treaties that require respect and adherence for a nation’s sovereignty and protection for the populace from and by the entire body of signatories…..there are no exceptions. **

The US maintains that their war on terror is moral and just. However, as we have seen, those alleged to be terrorists are not proven to be guilty in any court of law but accused and found guilty predicated on just the word of the various intelligence and defense agencies within the US Government. Needless to say, this amounts to premeditated murder and eviscerates the concept and intent of numerous treaties, human rights, freedom, democracy, due process, international law and sovereignty.

America’s robotic warfare has prompted universal criticism among the world’s foremost jurists, jurists such as Law Professor Cornell West who said recently ‘Let us not be deceived, Nixon, Bush and Obama, they’re war criminals. They have killed innocent people in the name of the struggle for freedom and the war on terror, but they’re suspending the law, very much like the Wall Street criminals.’

 To restore and respect both the concept and implementation of human rights, sovereignty and international law and treaty, it is the hope of numerous universally-acclaimed international jurists and human rights activists that an International Criminal Court (ICC) be convened immediately to investigate, adjudicate and prosecute a return to these revered and honorable institutions.

Bruce G. Richardson

Notes:

**On 8 April, 1982, the United States was signatory to theUnited Nations Convention on Prohibition or Restrictions on the use of Certain Controversial Weapons which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects. (Instrument: 1907 Hague Conventions IV, Regulations on Laws and Customs of War on Land,  PP. 4, 6, 10, 29-30, 33, 39, 43-59, 93, 121, 128, 153, 156, 170, 215, 268-269,271,325, 339, 340, 351, 378, 388, 472 ) Reference: Documents on the Laws of War, Second Edition, 1989, Edited by Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, Oxford University Press, London, UK.

As signatory, to the’1907 Hague Convention IV, Regulations on Laws and Customs of War on Land’, the United States accepted and agreed to the principle and concept that ‘the civilian population shall at all times remain under the protection of international law derived from established custom, from the principle of humanity and from dictates of public conscience.’ (p. 473)

For further reference on proscribed weapons usage and inhumane treatment of both combatants and non-combatants see: ‘Documents on the Laws of War’, Second Edition Revised and Updated, Edited by Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, 1989, reprinted in 1994 and 1995, Oxford University Press, London, UK.