Abstract
AbstractThis article examines the United Kingdom’s use of drones in an act of self-defence in a counter-terrorism operation. The government justified the targeted killing of a UK citizen in Syria – a country with which it was not at war at the time – with reference to existing laws and norms. In doing so, it contested a number of established concepts to justify its conduct as lawful activity. The article argues that modern weapons such as drones, which are used to address novel threats, lead to legal justification that in turn has the potential to create new laws. In this way, the intersection of norms, warfare and new technologies becomes a productive site of political contestation. The contribution of the article is twofold: empirically, it contributes to debates on targeted killing and discussions surrounding the meaning and interpretation of ‘imminence’ in the context of preventive self-defence in the United Kingdom; and theoretically, it adds to the constructivist literature by examining norm contestation and resulting normativity in this area. The article concludes that the legal justification in this particular instance has important implications for other emerging technologies that require discussions about how states justify their actions to conform with existing legal and normative frameworks.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subject
Sociology and Political Science,Philosophy,History
Reference76 articles.
1. Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. 2015. Drones and Targeted Killings: The Need to Uphold Human Rights and International Law, at: .
2. Fallon, M. 2015. ‘Defence Secretary Today Programme Interview’. Today, 14 July.
3. Targeted Killing
4. International Law, Legal Diplomacy, and the Counter-ISIL Campaign: Some Observations;Egan;International Law Studies,2016
5. The Chatham House Principles of International Law on the Use of Force in Self-Defence
Cited by
2 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献