On 3rd November 2002, a US Predator drone launched two missiles at a vehicle travelling through the desert in Marib province, Yemen. The drone’s target was al-Qaeda leader Qa’id Salim Sinan al-Harithi and this was the first of what has proved to be two decades of US drone targeted assassinations ‘beyond the battlefield’. An untold number of such operations have taken place across the globe since, with a significant number of such strikes causing serious civilian casualties. Despite public controversy and grave legal and ethical objections, the practise has spread among other drone operators including the UK, France and Turkey.
In this important online webinar, Drone Wars has invited a number of experts to mark 20 years of drone targeted killings, to offer some reflections on the human, legal and political cost of the practice and to discuss how we can ensure that drone operators abide by international law in this area.
Speakers:
Agnes Callamard, Secretary General, Amnesty International. Ex Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions (2016-2021)
Chris Woods, Founder of Airwars, author of ‘Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars’
Bonyan Jamal, Yemen-based lawyer and Legal Support Director with Mwatana for Human Rights, Yemen
Kamaran Osman, Human Rights Observer for Community Peacemaker Teams in Iraq Kurdistan
Chair: Chris Cole, Director, Drone Wars UK …...more
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