{"id":20764,"date":"2020-07-12T15:26:19","date_gmt":"2020-07-12T19:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=20764"},"modified":"2026-01-28T09:08:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T08:08:02","slug":"the-growing-use-of-weaponised-drones-risks-destabilising-global-peace-and-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=20764","title":{"rendered":"The growing use of weaponised drones risks destabilising global peace and security"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .<\/p>\n

An article from UN News<\/a><\/p>\n

The growing use of weaponised drones risks destabilising global peace and security and creating a \u201cdrone power club\u201d among nations, that face no effective accountability for deploying them as part of their \u201cwar on terror\u201d,\u00a0a senior\u00a0UN-appointed independent rights expert said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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At the\u00a0UN Human Rights Council\u00a0in Geneva, Agnes Callamard,\u00a0Special Rapporteur\u00a0on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said that\u00a0more than 100 countries have military drones and more than a third are thought to possess the largest and deadliest autonomous weapons.<\/p>\n

\u2018No red lines\u2019 in drone warfare?<\/strong><\/p>\n

States who used them on the grounds of self-defence, \u201cdefined in a very elastic fashion\u201d against purported terrorists, risked creating a situation where \u201cthere will be no red lines really\u201d, she told journalists later.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs more Government and non-State actors acquire armed drones and use them for targeted killing, there is a clear danger that war will come to be seen as normal rather than the opposite of peace,\u201d Ms. Callamard said. \u201cWar is at risk of being normalized as a necessary companion to peace, and not its opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appealing for greater regulation of the weapons, and lending her support to calls for a UN-led forum to discuss the deployment of drones specifically, the Special Rapporteur insisted that their growing use increased the danger of a \u201cglobal conflagration\u201d.<\/p>\n

(Article continued in right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

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Drones (unmanned bombers), Should they be outlawed?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Article continued from left column)<\/p>\n

\u2018Influential States\u2019 rewriting the rules<\/strong><\/p>\n

Such a move was necessary because \u201ca small number of rather influential States\u201d had sought to reinterpret the law of self-defence under Article\u00a0 51 of the\u00a0UN Charter, she explained.<\/p>\n

She urged UN Security Council to meet in formal session to review and debate all such self-defence claim, before recommending that the High Commissioner for Human Rights should produce an annual report on drone strikes casualties for the\u00a0Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n

There was now the \u201cvery real prospect that States may opt to \u2018strategically\u2019 eliminate high-ranking military officials outside the context of a \u2018known\u2019 war\u201d, she explained, and that they might seek to justify the killing \u201con the grounds of necessity – not imminence\u201d as the target was classified as a \u201cterrorist who posed a potential, undefined, future threat\u201d.<\/p>\n

Iranian general\u2019s chilling death<\/strong><\/p>\n

In particular, she cited the\u00a0killing by drone strike in Iraq of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on 3 January for which the United States claimed responsibility and which she insisted was a violation of the UN Charter.<\/p>\n

\u201cTargeted killings until very recently to drones had been limited to non-state actors,\u201d she told journalists. Until, for the first time in January 2020, a State armed drone targeted a high-level official of a foreign State and did so on the territory of a third State.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drone strikes were the preferred option for \u201cdecision makers and military alike for their relative efficiency, effectiveness, adaptability, acceptability, deniability, and political gain\u201d, the rights expert maintained.<\/p>\n

But she noted that their benefits were as \u201cillusory\u201d as the \u201cmyth of a surgical strike\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because of the current absence of effective oversight, it was \u201cpractically impossible to know whether a person(s) killed in a drone strike was, in fact, a lawful target\u201d, Ms. Callamard said, adding that harm to civilian populations, including deaths, injuries and trauma, was likely largely under-reported.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Thank you to Phyllis Kotite, the CPNN reporter for this article.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY . An article from UN News The growing use of weaponised drones risks destabilising global peace and security and creating a \u201cdrone power club\u201d among nations, that face no effective accountability for deploying them as part of their \u201cwar on terror\u201d,\u00a0a senior\u00a0UN-appointed independent rights expert said on Thursday. At the\u00a0UN Human Rights … Continue reading The growing use of weaponised drones risks destabilising global peace and security<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,76,1,93],"tags":[11,94],"class_list":["post-20764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disarmament","category-global","category-uncategorized","category-united-nations","tag-global","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38170,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20764\/revisions\/38170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}