Redefining ‘Imminent’ attack and ‘due process’: US Attorney General on drone assassinations
US Attorney General Eric Holder, says the hundreds of drone strikes worldwide are legal self-defense against imminent attack – some international lawyers suggest Holder may be preparing a legal justification for a strike on Iran. On assassination of US citizens: “The Constitution guarantees due process,” he coldly added, “not judicial process.” According to Wikipedia due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person, designed to protect the individual from the state, but this seems to be changing as Obama revives the doctrine of the War on Terror.
extracts from
Redefining Imminent: Are Obama’s Efforts to Justify Drone Warfare Aimed at Iran? – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.
03/15/2012
A week ago, US Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago not far from the campus where a young law professor named Barack Obama once taught students how freedom and security could remain compatible.
Holder made it clear that security is now his top priority. It is not always possible to arrest a terrorist with a US passport while he is planning an attack on the United States, Holder said. “But we must also recognize that there are instances where our government has the clear authority — and, I would argue, the responsibility — to defend the United States through the appropriate and lawful use of lethal force,” he said.
America’s top law enforcement official is not plagued by a guilty conscience. “The Constitution guarantees due process,” he coldly added, “not judicial process.”
According to Holder, only a few conditions must be met for the United States to lawfully execute a “target” using a drone. The targeted individual must be a “senior operational leader of al-Qaida or associated forces,” that is, an “enemy combatant.” He must be planning an attack against the United States and be located in a country that has given the United States permission to strike. Finally, capturing the suspect must not be feasible at the time in question.
…
Laying the Legal Groundwork for Iran
Under international law, an “imminent threat” represents the earliest point at which a country has the right to use such force. According to Holder, “the evaluation of whether an individual presents an ‘imminent threat’ incorporates considerations of the relevant window of opportunity to act, the possible harm that missing the window would cause to civilians, and the likelihood of heading off future disastrous attacks against the United States.” Someone who uses this sort of argument, say international law experts, could also make plans to launch a preventive war.
Claus Kress, a Cologne-based professor of international law and an internationally renowned expert on the US’s stance on the laws of war, believes that it is “not inconceivable” that, in justifying the drone war, Obama’s top lawyers may have already set their sights on an altogether different target: Iran.
…
As a result, the United States would have to invoke its “inherent” right of self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. Still, this requires that Iran has essentially raised its weapon against Israel or the United States.
via Redefining Imminent: Are Obama’s Efforts to Justify Drone Warfare Aimed at Iran? – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.