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Unmanned Drones Could Be Banned, Says Senior Judge
Unmanned drones could be banned from use in conflicts, Lord Bingham, one of Britain's most senior judges has suggested.
Lord Bingham, who retired last year as a senior law lord, said the aircraft could follow other weapons considered "so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance" in being consigned to the history books.
The MQ-9 Predator B unmanned drone (Photo: REUTERS) He likened drones, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza, to cluster bombs and landmines.
Lord Bingham made the comments to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in an interview which addressed the issue of the state being bound by the rule of law.
"Are there, for example, and this goes to conflict, not post-conflict situations, weapons that ought to be outlawed?" he said.
"From time to time in the history of international law various weapons have been thought to be so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance. I think cluster bombs and landmines are the most recent examples.
"It may be - I'm not expressing a view - that unmanned drones that fall on a house full of civilians is a weapon the international community should decide should not be used."
His comments are likely to lead to further calls for new international rules to protect civilians from attacks by the pilotless aircraft.
Drones have become an important tool in combating the Taliban in remote regions of Afghanistan, which are difficult to access by land and leave soldiers vulnerable to attack.
They have proved successful in eliminating several high-profile leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, including Mohammed Atef, reputedly al-Qaeda's chief of military operations.
However, they have been known to make errors and kill civilians.
Israel was accused last week of using missile-firing drones to unlawfully kill at least 29 Palestinian civilians during the Gaza Strip war. The US admitted to 26 civilian deaths in a series of drone attacks that took place in May.
Britain, which currently deploys drones to gather battlefield intelligence, has indicated that it plans to use them as weapons in the future.
It was disclosed earlier this year that the Home Office has suggested using drones to help police gather evidence and track criminals to avoid putting officers at risk.
Last year, Lord Bingham said he believed that Britain violated "international law and the rule of law" by supporting the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
40 Comments so far
Show Allwell, lord, i'm fairly certain that the u.s. mic really doesn't care what you think.
if there's a chicken-shit way to fight a war, leave it to america to lead the way.
It's nice to know there is at least ONE good man in the British Judiciary, retired or otherwise.
Obama's indiscriminate use of these gunships give him the callsign Gunslinger Obama.
Time to get rid of drones, land mines, nukes, cluster bombs etc. before we blow our neighbors and ouselves up!
Time to get rid of drones, land mines, nukes, cluster bombs etc. before we blow our neighbors and ouselves up!
"However, they have been known to make errors and kill civilians."
I like the article and agree with the premise, but is it the drones that "make errors and kill civilians," or the military members sitting in Nevada- or wherever they are in control- who miscalculate and make mistakes? Can we please place responsibility on human error and not on the weapons? The above statement makes it sound as if the drones malfunction and accidentally kill people.
And I agree with Lino, fighting the enemy with drones is the easy way out. How hard will it be to recruit young people to the military when "fighting" is similar to video games they've played: just operate some controls, push some buttons, and watch the monitor to see what explodes. Perhaps wars should be fought with the most primitive weapons possible- and the immediate offspring of the leaders who want to send citizens off to war should be in the frontlines, looking the enemy in the eye and facing a sword or mace.
I think you nailed it. What if Bin Laden and Barak Obama had to go fight it out in the desert with knives and were only allowed wear jockstraps for protection? I think they would quickly come to their senses, sit down and settle the whole mess over a cup of tea.
If the leaders of countries hell bent on war had to actually fight in them, peace would break out overnight.
Good point.....but I want to send Dick Cheney instead of Barack. And we'd save money on our side because Dickie wouldn't need a jockstrap.
We need many more people in high places condemning these cowardly killing machines. In the meanwhile it is up to the anti-war people to shout their condemnation from the rooftops. Don't know what machines the Brits have but we have three models the Predator the Reaper and now the Avenger. All "piloted" by video game fanatics.
These things make perfect sense as tools for long-range reconnaisance. It's when they were reconfigured as weapons platforms that a line was crossed.
I think it was Einstein who observed "We are technological giants and moral infants." He would have made an exception for Lord Bingham. Good luck sir.
It's great to hear a voice raised objecting to the drone weapons systems but it is doubtful that the operators of the US global military machine will accept any arguments about non-combatant/civilian deaths and injuries as reasons to curtail or stop their use. Their PR liars already have well rehearsed and performed lines of initial denial, promised self investigation, minimized death tolls or claims that all dead were "Taliban or terrorists or insurgents" or whatever word they are using that day. Then the news cycle moves on until the next remote farms and villages are devastated. And the corporate media from NY Times, NPR and PBS to the TV networks carefully do their assigned propaganda tasks in mostly avoiding such ugly stories which might upset folks. Their task is to "manufacture consent". A 21st century technology controlled from the opposite side of the globe is being used to attack and terrorize helpless farmers and people whose lives are caught in the 12th century of mud brick huts, no plumbing, primitive roads, little medical care and a life expectancy of 40 to 50. But ever since WW II the US empire has been viciously attacking peasant lands and communities and inflicting vast slaughters from SE Asia, to Central America, to the Middle East today, using the most destructive weapons available from depleted uranium, napalm, phosphorus, massive chemical spraying as with Agent Orange in SE Asia, and the rulers care little for the collateral damage of these weapons even to its own troops. If there is any ultimate justice, these rulers have much to answer for, including the late Robert McNamara.
Let's see now, didn't a former Attorney General, before he assumed that office, describe the Geneva Convention rules against torture as "quaint?" And that derogation of international law was allowed to stand first in the Bush and now the Obama administration? So what chance do such pronouncements by Lord Whoever have of being accepted by rogue governments like the U.S. and Israel and perhaps the UK? How quaint you sound, LW.
This is the Lord the Whitehouse 0ccupant should be heeding.
Not that jealous one bush claimed to hear.
Down with big, oppressive States and the weapons they use to terrorize foreign peoples and their own! If we don't do something now, what's going to stop Mordor-on-the-Potomac using drones on US? Just be deemed an "enemy of the State", regardless of which of the big parties is in power, and expect a literal "bolt from the blue" in the form of a Hellfire missile fired from a drone ...
(Probably, right now, Bush, Cheney & Co. wish they'd done just that.)
In the first world war, mustard gas was the cruel and inhumane weapon, In world war two the use of incendiary bombs and nuclear bombs were the cruel and inhumane weapons. In Vietnam, napalm bombs were the cruel and inhumane weapons. In Iraq and Afghanistan, weaponized drones are the new cruel and inhuman weapon. Norway just announced a new U.S. order of computer controlled vehicle turret machine guns. It seems as if as soon as they retire a weapon system as 'inhumane' , e.g. cluster bombs, they invent the means for new atrocities.
You left out Willie Pete which is far worse than Napalm. I'd also suggest that some weapons like Napalm if used to save your personal butt don't seem so inhuman. Not pretty, but true.
I agree with the poster that in effect said no matter how bad the weapon, if there is no war to use it in, it has no effect.
It isn't the tool that should be banned, it should be the intent. Banning the tool, as a protocol, cultivates ignorance. This protocol discourages the watch groups from being thoughtful and proactive, and encourages and emboldens the militarists.
Banning the intent encourages the watch groups to think, understand, take the initiative, make the connections between problems and symptoms, take the preventive approach, and maintain the upper hand in setting public policy.
We first require open discussion/debate on public policy, which is where the intent is discovered, and bad intent is deterred. Lurd Bingham's arguments may be formulated as discussion questions to extract from the militarists the ideal they are seeking in the drone development. The ideal itself becomes the object to be banned. This effectively bans all future developments toward the banned ideal.
In this way the people gain control over the guidance and direction of public policy, a proactive approach that is far more efficient and effective than the pathetic non-thinking reactionary approach embraced today.
Now that makes sense.
Ban the tool, ban the intent - not mutually exclusive.
A chickenhawk's weapon.
I spent the weekend of the 4th re-reading Orwell's 1984. In 2004, I wrote an article titled "George Orwell, Novelist or Prophet?" http://www.populistamerica.com/george_orwell__novelist_or_prophet_
I pointed out at the time how we were traveling down the same path. We are now getting closer to the destination. More thought police, more surveillance, now we are getting plans for citizens to be disappeared if it is thought that he or she might, eventually, do something that the government feels is a threat.
Apparently the Homegrown Terrorist Act is stalled in committee in the Senate, though passed overwhelmingly by Congress. Let's hope it stays there, but my guess is that it is going to pop up and be voted in in one of those Friday night specials, so no one will know what hit them until the following week when it will be too late.
We the People are on the edge of being arrested and placed in indefinite detention if we even discuss opposition to government policy. There are concentration camps waiting, built under no-bid contracts by KBR. Obama is working on an Executive Action to bring this about even if Congress doesn't go along with it.
Everything Orwell wrote about in 1940 is coming to pass. History is being falsified daily, education is becoming a bad joke, things are getting more expensive or non-existent, the people are getting poorer, their standard of living is dropping while the "Inner Party" the billionaires are getting richer and more powerful.
How long before drones and hellfire missiles are killing patriots here in the US under the guise of rooting out "domestic terrorism?"
If you can find one, get a copy of 1984 and read it thoroughly. Then, even if you do nothing to reverse this trend, you can't say you weren't warned.
Steve I checked out your article and just wanted to say I agree with everything you say about the parallels between 1984 and current times. Your article was written 2006 when we were under Bush. You may want to update it by replacing the name der Bush with der Barak.
I too have reread 1984 last week. I have suspected for sometime that the people that have control of this country have been planning for something like 1984 for a long time. The use of drones is the clue that is staring us in the face. Along with detention centers built for the purpose of quelling any kind of revolutionary spirit. The people that control will not allow any type of anarchy except in the financial sector. They know that it is only a matter of time that the dollar will be destroyed and unemployment will be unmanageable. The question now is who is being set up to be Big Brother. Someone to hate and keeping everybody's mind on him/her and forgetting about the real power players. He could very well have the initials BO. Something to really watch for.
deleted double posting
(which I also have had to preview!)
moot point: 1984 was written in 1948.
Orwell's real name was Eric Blair.
I love the comments here bitching about drones. "If only we gave our enemies a fair chance to beat us" lol!
I am guessing that you find sitting completely safely in a place far away from the "action" of killing children honorable. Or perhaps you are really saying that war in any form is despicable. Clearing up what you really mean would help with understanding your statement. lol!
"sitting completely safely in a place far away from the "action" of killing children honorable."
I find your statement puzzling. Are you suggesting that only children are killed remotely? Are you suggesting its more honorable to kill your enemy with a bayonet so you can see the "whites of their eyes"? Would you prefer to face the enemy and give him his chance at you? I am guessing you know absolutely nothing about war. (lol)
Dear Henry8,
I'm guessing I know as much about war as you do. Perhaps even more. How many of your children have been killed in wars? Of course more than children are killed in wars. How about the innocent as well as the few "guilty". And yes I personally would prefer to face my enemy head on. Wouldn't you?
guess who - knock knock
I hear what you're saying - if you gotta fight, fight dirty.
but be sure your fight is justified.
where is the proof that al Q'yote carried out the demolition of the WTC?
bush's sayso?
I read somewhere that the military is developing a "robot bee" that is about the size of a golf ball, has a video camera, can hover, and be flown remotely into an area where enemy are located and detonated.
There is a simpler idea: no pre-emptive war
Speaking for Veterans for Peace
Fusion
Amen!!!!!
Does anybody actually believe that if unmanned drones weren't used to assassinate one's political enemies, that F-15s wouldn't be used instead? Or (for a glimpse of our inevitable future) satellite-guided weapons?
Yes.
Of course, most of the time they would.
Let's face it. If drones are banned, most of the time people will use drones. Then, when they have to make nice, they'll use manned planes.
Should we lift the ban on torture simply because people break it?
What about theft, murder, or rape? We've banned them for thousands of years, but the ban "hasn't worked."
In places all over the world all through history, people have fought wars. At the same time,m in places all over the world all throughout history, people have managed to avoid war. Partial solutions partially solve.
Laws and bans and statements and those poets who are unacknowledged legislators and that pen that's mightier than the sword are all part of the frail mechanism that attempts to render human insight durable and transportable.
This works, insofar as it works, when the men return from war and are recognized as non-heroes, when the boys look at strong young soldiers and wish they could be something else.
The word's as old as Lysistrata and has never reached all, but let it work. Put it in different media. If they think the inspiration of art is pretend, let it be law. Not everyone needs the same gesture.
I fairly amazed at the number of folks here that want to fix bayonets and charge the enemy.
What kind of idiots say its chicken shit to keep your head down or to shoot your enemy without giving him a chance to shoot you if you are given a choice.
The kind that want to fix bayonets are the ones that continually comment on war without knowing anything about it. That have never been within a thousand miles of combat. The rear eschelon warriors telling their bar stories about their fantasy fights. The ones that know far more about a battle than men that fought it.
While I think you put your finger on a complex consideration, I would suggest that military superiority (usually technological superiority these days) that leads to politically and/or socially less painful consequences (fewer casualties on 'our side' for example, or a better ROI for 'enemy' casualties) makes starting wars easier, and therefore makes war far more likely to be employed as a solution to otherwise negotiable political differences.
I suggest that drones, following the example of ICBMs and ABMs, land-mines, cruise missiles, 'stealth' weapons, disposable mercenaries, biological and chemical weapons - among other 'weapons systems', all make war politically easier to wage because the cost to your combatants is minimized. If your intent is to diminish the number and ferocity of wars then perhaps these weapons systems may be counter-productive to your intent.
I think that some people actually like the idea of war. Too many from my point of view. When we the US decided to go into Iraq, and we the people allowed our government to make this TERROR-bile error we put ourselves to shame. We have the largest strongest military on earth and it was used in offense. We have to face the fact that we are the most despicable bullies that the world has known. For those who get some thrill about "killing" the "enemy" and thus the real meaning of war first define the "enemy" and invite them to a "battlefield" where all the participants are willing. Stop killing innocents! Call the today War for what it is....pure terror and shame.
What if presidents were forced by law to actually fight in the front lines for say, one week out of every month for as long as a conflict lasts? Obama, the little chicken hawk, would have to suit up his skinny butt in a uniform, lace up his boots, start kicking in doors, roughing up villagers and avoiding IEDs. Do you think he would be as gung ho for war as he is now? Oh hell no!
Read Smedley Butler.
"They've been known to make errors and kill civilians" - both? At once?