UN investigator decries US use of killer drones

Investigator calls on Washington to justify policy.

Reuters June 19, 2012






Citing figures from the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, he said US drone strikes killed at least 957 people in Pakistan in 2010 alone. Thousands have been killed in 300 drone strikes there since 2004, 20 percent of whom are believed to be civilians.


Dramatic increase










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Kanwal | 8 years ago | Reply | Recommend When Abu Yahya al-Libi died the umpteeth time in a drone attack, the impotent UN people finally woke up. I wonder how many will have to die how many times to make sure they take some action? And this is amazing: "where it is unclear whether there was an armed conflict or not (e.g. in Pakistan)" So that means if there was an armed conflict because of which US attacked through Drones, there may be a chance US could get away with using Drones? Amazing.
Sexton Blake | 8 years ago | Reply | Recommend

@Solomon2: It should be realized that the legality of Resolution UNSCR 1373 is questionable at best. It is not clear who introduced UNSCR 1373 and it only required 5 countries to get it through. The five countries are the ones who go around dominating the world and therefore they have a vested interest in attacking anybody who disagrees with them, and they can justify their attacks merely by the inference that the person or persons killed were terrorists. They do not have to worry about little things such as just cause or proof, and the poor wretches they kill are in no position to bring charges against them. On the other hand Resolution 1456 does attempt to protect international human rights, and expects the five countries to respect their obligations under international law. By ignoring R.1456 America, rather than Pakistan, should be embarrassed, but unfortunately this is not the case, and the deaths of a few million people over the last ten years establishes that this is so.

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