American Drone Assassinations May Violate International Law, Experts Say

The standards governing America’s drone assassinations may violate
the Geneva Conventions and other international norms, legal experts say.

U.S. forces routinely classify bystanders felled in its Afghanistan
drone strikes as “enemies killed in action,” even when they are not the
intended targets of the strikes, according to a source and to documents obtained by The Intercept published
earlier this month. But the Geneva Conventions specify that when
someone’s status is not clear, they should be classified as a civilian. Article 50
of Additional Protocol I, which dates to 1977 and was ratified by 174
countries, says that “in case of doubt whether a person is a civilian,
that person shall be considered to be a civilian.”