Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:13:20.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

‘Targeted killing’ and the lack of acquiescence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2019

Elisabeth Schweiger*
Affiliation:
University of York, Department of Politics, YO10 5DD, York, United Kingdom

Abstract

Over the last decade, the concept targeted killing has received much attention in debates on the customary interpretation of the right to self-defence, particularly in the context of practices such as US armed drone attacks. In these debates, government silence has often been invoked as acquiescence to the jus ad bellum aspects of targeted killing. Focusing on the question of state silence on targeted killing practices by the Israeli and US governments in recent years, this article investigates over 900 UN Security Council and Human Rights Council debates and argues that there has been no tacit consent to targeted killing. The analysis firstly shows that the majority of states have condemned Israeli targeted killing practices and have raised concerns about armed drone attacks, while falling short of directly protesting against US practices. The article, secondly, applies the customary international law requirements for acquiescence and challenges the idea that silence on US armed drone attacks can be understood as a legal stance towards targeted killing. The article, finally, investigates the political context and engages with alternative interpretations of silence. Contextualizing acts of protest and lack of protest within an asymmetrical political context, the article posits that the invocation of silence as acquiescence in the case of targeted killing is problematic and risks complicity of legal knowledge production with the violence of hegemonic actors.

Type
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Copyright
© Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 J. Dorsey and C. Paulussen, ‘Towards a European Position on Armed Drones and Targeted Killing: Surveying EU Counterterrorism Perspectives’, ICCT, April 2015, available at icct.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ICCT-Dorsey-Paulussen-Towards-A-European-Position-On-Armed-Drones-And-Targeted-Killing-Surveying-EU-Counterterrorism-Perspectives.pdf.

2 HRC, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Philipp Alston, UN Doc. A/HRC/14/24/Add.6(2010); HRC, Summary of the Human Rights Council Interactive Panel Discussion of Experts on the Use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft or Armed Drones in Compliance with International Law, UN Doc. A/HRC/28/38(2014); House of Lords, House of Commons, Joint Committee on Human Rights, ‘The Government’s Policy on the Use of Drones for Targeted Killing, Second Report of Session 2015-16’, 10 May 2016, available at publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201516/jtselect/jtrights/574/574.pdf; European Parliament, Resolution of 27 February 2014 on the use of armed drones, 2014/2567(RSP); O’Connell, M. E., ‘Remarks: The Resort to Drones Under International Law’, (2010) 39 Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 661 Google Scholar; K. Anderson, ‘Targeted Killing in U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy and Law’, 11 May 2009, SSRN, available at papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1415070; Krasmann, S., ‘Targeted Killing and Its Law: On a Mutually Constitutive Relationship’, (2012) 25 LJIL 665 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heller, K. J., ‘“One Hell of a Killing Machine”: Signature Strikes and International Law’, (2013) 11 Journal of International Criminal Justice 89 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Radsan, A. J. and Murphy, R. W., ‘Due Process and Targeted Killing of Terrorists’, (2009) 31 Cardozo Law Review 406 Google Scholar.

4 UNODA, ‘Study on Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Prepared on the Recommendation of the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters’, 2015, available at unoda-web.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/publications/more/drones-study/drones-study.pdf.

5 Dorsey and Paulussen, ICCT Research Paper, supra note 1.

6 M. E. Villiger, Customary International Law and Treaties (1985); M. Byers, Custom, Power, and the Power of Rules (1999).

7 ILC, Report by Special Rapporteur Michael Wood, Third Report on Identification of Customary International Law, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682(2015); Mendelson, M., ‘The Subjective Element in Customary International Law’, (1995) 66 British Yearbook of International Law 177 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 A. Plaw and J. F. Reis, ‘The Contemporary Practice of Self-Defense: Evolving Toward the Use of Preemptive or Preventive Force?’, in K. Fisk and J. M. Ramos (eds.), Preventive Force: Drones, Targeted Killing, and the Transformation of Contemporary Warfare (2016), 229, 240.

9 Ibid.

10 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, supra note 7; see also Corten, O., ‘The Controversies over the Customary Prohibition on the Use of Force: A Methodological Debate’, (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 803 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. Gray, International Law and the Use of Force (2008).

11 Bradley, C. A. and Gulati, M., ‘Withdrawing from International Custom’, (2010) 120 Yale Law Journal 202 Google Scholar, 209.

12 Mendelson, supra note 7, at 185.

13 Kammerhofer, J., ‘Uncertainty in the Formal Sources of International Law: Customary International Law and Some of Its Problems’, (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 523 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 524.

14 Garwood-Gowers, A., ‘Israel’s Airstrike on Syria’s Al-Kibar Facility: A Test Case for the Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self-Defence?’, (2011) 16 Journal of Conflict and Security Law 263 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 265.

15 Kopela, S., ‘The Legal Value of Silence as State Conduct in the Jurisprudence of International Tribunals’, (2010) 29 Australian Year Book of International Law 87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, supra note 7.

17 Corten, O.The “Unwilling or Unable” Test: Has It Been, and Could It Be, Accepted?’, (2016) 29 LJIL 777 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garwood-Gowers, supra note 14; Reinold, T., ‘State Weakness, Irregular Warfare, and the Right to Self-Defense Post-9/11’, (2011) 105 American Journal of International Law 244 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Reinold supra note 17, at 245.

19 Murphy, S. D., ‘The International Legality of US Military Cross-Border Operations from Afghanistan into Pakistan’, (2009) 85 International Law Studies U.S, Naval War College 109 Google Scholar.

20 Anderson, supra note 2.

21 Plaw and Reis, supra note 8, at 243.

22 Ibid., at 246.

23 Wilner, A. S., ‘Targeted Killings in Afghanistan: Measuring Coercion and Deterrence in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency’, (2010) 33 Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 307 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beard, J. M., ‘Law and War in the Virtual Era’, (2009) 103 American Journal of International Law 409 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; H. H. Koh, U.S. Department Of State, ‘The Obama Administration and International Law’, Speech, 25 March 2010, available at 2009-2017.state.gov/s/l/releases/remarks/139119.htm; J. Tinetti, ‘Lawful Targeted Killing or Assassination: A Roadmap for Operators in the Global War on Terror’, 9 February 2004, Naval War College Newport, R.I., available at apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a422785.pdf.

24 But see the argument that ‘targeted killing’ contradicts the IHL assumption that combatants are not criminals made by Gross, M. L., ‘Assassination and Targeted Killing: Law Enforcement, Execution or Self-Defence?’, (2006) 23 Journal of Applied Philosophy 323 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 326.

25 See, for a similar discussion of the issues raised by ‘targeted killing’, UNGA, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism, UN Doc. A/68/389(2013).

26 House of Lords, House of Commons, Joint Committee on Human Rights, supra note 2, at 6; Blank, L. R., ‘Targeted Strikes: The Consequences of Blurring the Armed Conflict and Self-Defense Justifications’, (2012) 38 William Mitchell Law Review 1655 Google Scholar.

27 The White House, ‘Fact Sheet: U.S. Policy Standards and Procedures for the Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations Outside the United States and Areas of Active Hostilities’, 23 May 2013, available at obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/fact-sheet-us-policy-standards-and-procedures-use-force-counterterrorism.

28 J. O. Brennan, ‘The Efficacy and Ethics of U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy’, Wilson Center, 30 April 2012, available at www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-efficacy-and-ethics-us-counterterrorism-strategy; Paust, J. J., ‘Self-Defense Targetings of Non-State Actors and Permissibility of US Use of Drones in Pakistan’, (2009) 19 Journal of Transnational Law & Policy 237 Google Scholar, 260.

29 ILA, ‘Final Report Meaning of Armed Conflict in International Law’, 2010, available at www.rulac.org/assets/downloads/ILA_report_armed_conflict_2010.pdf; Wong, M. S., ‘Targeted Killings and the International Legal Framework: With Particular Reference to the US Operation against Osama Bin Laden’, (2012) 11 Chinese Journal of International Law 127 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Brookman-Byrne, M.Drone Use “Outside Areas of Active Hostilities”: An Examination of the Legal Paradigms Governing US Covert Remote Strikes’, (2017) 64 Netherlands International Law Review 3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O’Connell, M. E., ‘When Is a War Not a War? The Myth of the Global War on Terror’, (2005) 12 ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law 535 Google Scholar.

31 Heller, supra note 2.

32 Henriksen, A., ‘ Jus ad Bellum and American Targeted Use of Force to Fight Terrorism Around the World’, (2014) 19 Journal of Conflict and Security Law 211 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 215.

33 UNGA, Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, UN Doc. A/RES/56/83(2002), 5, Art. 20.

34 Military and Paramilitary Activities In and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States Of America), Merits, Judgment of 27 June 1986, [1986] ICJ Rep. 14.

35 Saura, J., ‘On the Implications of the Use of Drones in International Law’, (2016) 12 Journal of International Law and International Relations 120 Google Scholar, 137.

36 Paust, supra note 28.

37 Koh, U.S. Department of State, supra note 23.

38 It has thus been argued that ‘the armed conflict between U.S. military forces and those of the Taliban inside and outside of Afghanistan since October 7, 2001 is an international armed conflict’ within the framework of which ‘all of the customary laws of war apply’, see Paust, supra note 28, at 261.

39 Brennan, supra note 28.

40 Ahmed, D. I., ‘Defending Weak States Against the “Unwilling or Unable” Doctrine of Self-Defense’, (2013) 9 Journal of International Law and International Relations 1 Google Scholar; Corten, supra note 17; Couzigou, I., ‘The Right to Self-Defence Against Non-State Actors: Criteria of the “Unwilling or Unable” Test’, (2017) 77 Heidelberg Journal of International Law 53 Google Scholar.

41 Trapp, K. N., ‘Back to Basics: Necessity, Proportionality, and the Right of Self-Defence Against Non-State Terrorist Actors’, 56 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 156.

42 Ahmed, supra note 40; Corten, supra note 17.

43 U.S. Department of Justice, ‘Department of Justice White Paper: Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa’ida or An Associated Force’, Draft 8 November 2011, available at fas.org/irp/eprint/doj-lethal.pdf, at 7.

44 Greenwood, C., ‘International Law and the Pre-Emptive Use of Force’, (2003) 4 San Diego International Law Journal 7 Google Scholar; Reisman, W. M. and Armstrong, A. C., ‘The Past and Future of the Claim of Preemptive Self-Defense’, (2006) 100 American Journal of International Law 525 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bethlehem, D., ‘Self-Defense against an Imminent or Actual Armed Attack by Nonstate Actors’, (2012) 106 American Journal of International Law 770 Google Scholar; Garwood-Gowers, supra note 14; Anghie, A., ‘The War on Terror and Iraq in Historical Perspective’, (2005) 43 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 45 Google Scholar.

45 Anghie, Ibid., at 51.

46 Brooks, R., ‘Drones and the International Rule of Law’, (2014) 28 Ethics & International Affairs 83 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 98.

47 Note, however, that the Israeli government relies on a rather particular legal framework in the Occupied Territories; see Ben-Naftali, O. and Michaeli, K., ‘“We Must Not Make a Scarecrow of the Law”: A Legal Analysis of the Israeli Policy of Targeted Killings’, (2003) 36 Cornell International Law Journal 233 Google Scholar.

48 European Parliament, 2014/2567(RSP), supra note 2; HRC, UN Doc. A/HRC/14/24/Add.6(2010), supra note 2; Dorsey and Paulussen, ICCT Research Paper, supra note 1; O’Connell, supra note 2; Ahmad, , ‘The Legality of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Outside the Combat Zone’, (2014) 30 Defense & Security Analysis 245 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 These practices were discussed during a number of Security Council debates and resolutions; see, for example, UNSC, Provisional verbatim record of the 2674th meeting, held at Headquarters, New York, on Tuesday, 15 April 1986, UN Doc. S/PV.2674(1986); UNSC, Israel-Lebanon, UN Doc. S/RES/425(1978); UNGA, Declaration of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity on the aerial and naval military attack against the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya by the present United States Administration in April 1986, UN Doc. A/RES/41/38(1986).

50 See E. Schweiger, ‘The Lure of Novelty: “Targeted Killing” and Its Older Terminological Siblings’, OUP, 3 June 2019, available at doi.org/10.1093/ips/olz006

51 O’Connell, supra note 2.

52 Linderfalk, U., ‘The Post-9/11 Discourse Revisited: The Self-Image of the International Legal Scientific Discipline’, (2010) 2 Goettingen Journal of Intenational Law 893 Google Scholar, 939.

53 House of Lords, House of Commons, Joint Committee on Human Rights, supra note 2.

54 P. Starski, ‘Silence within the Process of Normative Change and Evolution of the Prohibition on the Use of Force’, 15 October 2016, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law (MPIL) Research Paper No. 2016-20, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2851809, at 15.

55 Brookman-Byrne, supra note 30.

56 UNSC, United Nations Security Council Debate (4929th Meeting): The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, UN Doc. S/PV.4929(2004).

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.; see also Algeria, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Chile, Russia, Spain, Germany, France, Libya, Egypt, Quatar, the League of Arab States, Bahrain, Ireland, Jordan, Tunisia, and Indonesia.

59 UNSC, United Nations Security Council Debate (4945th Meeting): The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, UN Doc. S/PV.4945(2004).

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Representative of Jordan in UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.4929(2004), supra note 56.

63 UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.4945(2004), supra note 59; UNSC; United Nations Security Council Debate (4934th Meeting): The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, UN Doc. S/PV.4934(2004); UNSC, United Nations Security Council Debate (4357th Meeting): The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question, UN Doc. S/PV.4357(2001).

64 UNSC, United Nations Security Council Debate (4588th Meeting): The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, UN Doc. S/PV.4588(2002).

65 See for example UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.4929(2004), supra note 56; UNSC, United Nations Security Council Debate (5411st Meeting): The situation in the Middle East, incuding the Palestinian question, UN Doc. S/PV.5411(2006); UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.4945(2004), supra note 59.

66 The representative of Austria for example ‘supported the Secretary-General’s call to ensure that attacks by armed drones complied fully with international humanitarian law and human rights laws’ in UNSC, United Nations Security Council Debate (7109th Meeting): Protection of civilians in armed conflict UN Doc. S/PV.7109(2014), 44; see also UNSC, United Nations Security Council Debate (6980th Meeting): Children and armed conflict - Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict (S/2013/245), UN Doc. S/PV.6980(2013); UNSC, United Nations Security Council Debate (6917th Meeting): Protection of civilians in armed conflict - Letter dated 4 February 2013 from the Permanent Representative of the Republicof Korea to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General (S/2013/75), UN Doc S/PV.6917(2013).

67 Gray, supra note 10, at 166.

68 HRC, UN Doc. A/HRC/28/38(2014), supra note 2, para. 38. Amongst the participating states were Brazil, Chile, China, France, Germany, Russia, South Africa, UK, and USA

69 Ibid., para. 37.

70 Ibid., para. 33.

71 HRC, Resolution Ensuring Use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft or Armed Drones in Counter-Terrorism and Military Operations in Accordance with International Law, Including International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, UN Doc. A/69/53 (2014), 86–8.

72 Ibid.; amongst them Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.

73 Ibid.; USA, UK, Japan, France, Republic of Korea, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

74 Ibid.

75 HRC, UN Doc. A/HRC/28/38(2014), supra note 2.

76 Ibid., para. 31.

77 HRC, ‘Human Rights Council extends mandates on Syria, Iran, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Myanmar’, 28 March 2014, available at http://www.ohchr.org/en/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=14455&LangID=R.

78 Ibid.

79 HRC, Resolution Ensuring Use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft or Armed Drones in Counter-Terrorism and Military Operations in Accordance with International Law, Including International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, UN Doc. A/70/53(2015), 34–5.

80 HRC, UN Doc. A/HRC/28/38(2014), supra note 2, para. 37.

81 UNGA, Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, UN Doc. A/RES/68/178(2013), para. 6(s).

82 UNGA, UN Doc. A/68/389(2013), supra note 25.

83 HRC, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism, UN Doc. A/HRC/34/61(2017), 61.

84 Plaw and Reis, supra note 8; Anderson, supra note 2.

85 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, supra note 7, para. 22.

86 Villiger, supra note 6, at 39.

87 Linderfalk, supra note 52, at 941.

88 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1155 UNTS 331, Art. 53.

89 Fisheries Case (United Kingdom v. Norway), Jurisdiction and Admissibility, Judgment of 18 December 1951, [1951] ICJ Rep. 116, para. 139.

90 Kopela, supra note 15, at 107.

91 North Sea Continental Shelf Case (Federal Republic of Germany/Denmark; Federal Republic of Germany/Netherlands), Merits, Judgment of 20 February 1969, [1969] ICJ Rep. 3 (Judge Lachs, Dissenting Opinion).

92 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, supra note 7, para. 21.

93 See Sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge (Malaysia/Singapore), Merits, Judgment of 23 May 2008, [2008] ICJ Rep. 12, para. 121.

94 E. Schweiger, ‘Listen closely: what silence can tell us about legal knowledge production’, November 2018, London Review of International Law, available at academic.oup.com/lril/article-abstract/6/3/391/5382550?redirectedFrom=fulltext.

95 Island of Palmas Case (Netherlands v. USA), Judgment of 4 April 1928 [1928], UN Reports of International Arbitral Awards, 831, 868.

96 Fisheries case, supra note 89.

97 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, supra note 7, para. 24.

98 Honduras Borders (Guatemala v. Honduras), Judgment of 23 January 1933 [1933], UN Reports of International Arbitral Awards 1307, 1327.

99 See, for example, The White House, Fact Sheet, supra note 27.

100 A. Birdsall, ‘Drone Warfare in Counterterrorism and Normative Change: US Policy and the Politics of International Law’, (2018) 32 Global Security 241.

101 Koh, U.S. Department of State, supra note 23.

102 J. Purkiss and J. Serle, ‘US Drones Appear to have Returned to Pakistan’, 6 March 2017, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, available at www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-03-06/us-drones-return-to-pakistan.

103 ICCT Research Paper, supra note 1, at 55.

104 North Sea Continental Shelf case, supra note 91, para. 77.

105 Ibid., para. 76.

106 MacGibbon, I. C., ‘Customary International Law and Acquiescence’, (1957) 33 British Year Book of International Law 115 Google Scholar, 118; see also J. Brunnée and S. J. Toope, Legitimacy and Legality in International Law: An Interactional Account (2010), 26.

107 Brennan, supra note 28; U.S. Department of Justice, supra note 43; The White House, ‘Remarks by the President at the National Defense University’, 23 May 2013, available at obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university.

108 Reinold, supra note 17, at 281.

109 International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic (Stanford Law School) and Global Justice Clinic (NYU School Of Law), ‘Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, And Trauma To Civilians From Us Drone Practices In Pakistan’, September 2012, available at chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Living-Under-Drones.pdf, at 123.

110 Nicaragua case, supra note 34, para. 200.

111 ‘US Warns Russia over Georgia Strike’, 13 September 2002, BBC News, available at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2254959.stm.

112 UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.4588(2002), supra note 64.

113 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, supra note 7, para. 25.

114 MacGibbon, I. C., ‘The Scope of Acquiescence in International Law’, (1954) 31 British Year Book of International Law 143 Google Scholar, 165.

115 Langille, B., ‘It’s Instant Custom: How the Bush Doctrine Became Law after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001’, (2003) 26 Boston College International and Comparative Law Review 145 Google Scholar; Cheng, B., ‘United Nations Resolutions on Outer Space: “Instant” International Customary Law?’, (1965) 5 Indian Journal of International Law 23 Google Scholar.

116 Fisheries case, supra note 89, 116.

117 MacGibbon, supra note 114, at 143.

118 HRC, UN Doc. A/HRC/14/24/Add.6(2010), supra note 2, para. 13.

119 Brookman-Byrne, supra note 30.

120 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, supra note 7, para. 23.

121 Ibid.; G. Danilenko, Law-Making in the International Community (1993), 108.

122 See, for a similar argument, Linderfalk, supra note 52, at 932.

123 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, supra note 7.

124 Ibid.

125 ILC, Identification of Customary International Law. Text of the Draft Conclusions Provisionally Adopted by the Drafting Committee, UN Doc. A/CN.4/L.872(2016), Conclusion 10(3) (emphasis added).

126 Starski, supra note 54, at 38.

127 Brookman-Byrne, supra note 30.

128 See, for example, House of Lords, House of Commons, Joint Committee on Human Rights, supra note 2; Dorsey and Paulussen, ICCT Research Paper, supra note 1; A. Dworkin, ‘Policy Brief: Drones and Targeted Killing: Defining a European Position’, July 2013, European Council on Foreign Relations, available at www.ecfr.eu/page/-/ECFR84_DRONES_BRIEF.pdf.

129 Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, ‘Doc. 13928, Reply to Recommendation 2069, Drones and Targeted Killings: The Need to Uphold Human Rights and International Law’, 8 December 2015, available at http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=22301&lang=en.

130 Ibid., para 2.

131 HRC, UN Doc. A/HRC/28/38(2014), supra note 2, para. 56.

132 See for further discussion of this Schweiger, E., ‘Listen Closely: What Silence Can Tell Us About Legal Knowledge Production’, (2018) 6 London Review of International Law 391 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

133 A. D’Amato, The Concept of Custom in International Law (1971), 101.

134 Ibid.

135 D’Aspremont, J., ‘Wording in International Law’, (2012) 25 LJIL 575 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 582.

136 Krasmann, supra note 2, at 668.

137 See particularly the 2004 Security Council debate UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.4945(2004), supra note 59.

138 UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.5411(2006), supra note 65.

139 Ibid.

140 ILC, UN Doc. A/CN.4/682, para. 22.

141 Burhanudeen, H., ‘Diplomatic Language: An Insight from Speeches Used in International Diplomacy’, (2006) 67 Akademika 37 Google Scholar.

142 See, for example, N. VanRaemdonck, ‘Vested Interest Or Moral Indecisiveness? Explaining the EU’s Silence on the US Targeted Killing Policy in Pakistan’, March 2012, Istituto affari internazionali Working Papers 12 | 05, available at www.files.ethz.ch/isn/141630/iaiwp1205.pdf.

143 Dworkin, supra note 128, at 2.

144 B. Stern, ‘Custom at the Heart of International Law’, in P. Reuter, Mélanges offerts à Paul Reuter: le droit international, unité et diversité (1981), 89, 93, available at fr.scribd.com/document/137206779/Brigitte-Stern-Custom-at-the-Heart-of-International-Law (translated by M. Byers and A. Denise); Anghie, A., ‘Finding the Peripheries: Sovereignty and Colonialism in Nineteenth-Century International Law’, (1999) 40 Harvard International Law Journal 1 Google Scholar; Chimni, B. S., ‘Customary International Law: A Third World Perspective’, (2018) 112 American Journal of International Law 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

145 Corten, supra note 10, at 818.

146 The 1986 counterterrorism attack by the US in Libya was met with vehement protest during the ensuing Security Council debates, see UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.2675(1986); while there were few objections to US counterterrorism attacks in Iraq 1993 or in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, see UNSC, UN Doc. S/PV.3245(1998) and UN Doc. S/1998/794.

147 Lobel, J., ‘The Use of Force to Respond to Terrorist Attacks’, (1999) 24 Yale Journal of International Law 537 Google Scholar, 540.

148 Heller, K. J., ‘Specially Affected States and the Formation of Custom’, (2018) 112 American Journal of International Law 191 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 207.

149 Panke, D., ‘Speech Is Silver, Silence Is Golden?’, (2017) 12 Review of International Organizations 121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ahmed, supra note 40; Brunnée and Toope, supra note 106, at 74.

150 Kelly, J. P., ‘The Twilight of Customary International Law’, (2000) 40 Virginia Journal of International Law 449 Google Scholar, 474.

151 Ibid.; Olivier Corten similarly points to the legal debates on the invasion of Yugoslavia in which practices by NATO states were emphasized while ‘the reticence and protest of other [non-NATO] states (such as members of the non-aligned movement), on the other hand, were minimized; ignored, even’, in Corten, supra note 10, at 811.

152 Peshawar High Court, Judgment of 11 April 2013, Writ Petition No. 1551-P/2012.

153 European Parliament, Resolution 2014/2567 (RSP), supra note 2.

154 Plaw and and Reis, supra note 8, at 243.

155 Chimni, supra note 144, at 19; see also Stern, supra note 144; Bradley and Gulati, supra note 11.

156 Schweiger, supra note 132.