{"id":1519,"date":"2013-05-13T10:24:40","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T16:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=1519"},"modified":"2013-05-13T10:24:40","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T16:24:40","slug":"the-legality-of-war-pakistani-court-rules-cia-drone-strikes-constitute-a-war-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/the-legality-of-war-pakistani-court-rules-cia-drone-strikes-constitute-a-war-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legality of War: Pakistani Court Rules CIA Drone Strikes Constitute a War Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alice K. Ross, Bureau of Investigative Journalism
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

In the first major Pakistani court ruling on the legality of the CIA\u2019s drone campaign in the country, a Peshawar High Court judge said this morning that strikes are \u2018criminal offences\u2019. Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan ordered\u00a0Pakistan\u2019s government to \u2018use force if need be\u2019 to end drone attacks in the country\u2019s tribal regions.<\/em><\/p>\n

He ruled that US drone strikes in Pakistan constitute a \u2018war crime\u2019 and are a \u2018blatant violation of basic human rights\u2019, killing hundreds of civilians.\u00a0He ordered the government to \u2018forcefully\u2019 convey to the US that it must end drone strikes and called on the UN Security Council to intervene.<\/p>\n

The Pakistani government should also gather data on those affected by drone strikes, and offer redress to the victims, Khan added. At present the only data systematically released on drone strikes comes from independent monitoring organisations such as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which has been investigating drone strikes and tracking reported casualties since 2011.<\/p>\n

The ruling comes two days ahead of national elections marking Pakistan\u2019s first-ever transition from one civilian administration to another. The new government will have to decide between implementing the court\u2019s orders or appealing to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The judgment applies to a lengthy case against the CIA\u00a0brought by the\u00a0Foundation for Fundamental Rights<\/a>\u00a0on behalf of Noor Khan, a tribesman whose father was among dozens of civilians killed in a drone strike on a gathering of tribal elders on March 17 2011.\u00a0Last year, Noor Khan also attempted to bring\u00a0legal action<\/a>\u00a0against the UK government for providing information that could lead to deaths in drone strikes, in a case backed by legal charity Reprieve. The attempt was refused but he is appealing.<\/p>\n

Lawyer\u00a0Shahzad Akbar<\/strong>, who argued the Peshawar case,\u00a0said: \u2018It is a landmark judgment: drone victims in Waziristan will now get some justice after a long wait. This ruling will also prove to be a test for the new government as if drones continue and government fails to act, it will run the risk of contempt of court.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the course of the Peshawar case, Dost Muhammad Khan also\u00a0clarified<\/a>\u00a0that drone strikes were illegal even if \u2013 as has been rumoured \u2013 senior Pakistani officials secretly consent to strikes.<\/p>\n

He also repeatedly demanded that the secretariat for the tribal regions releases any casualty data it holds.<\/p>\n

Naureen Shah, an academic at Columbia Law School and co-author of several studies on drones, said the ruling increases the pressure on the US to respond to claims of civilian deaths in drones strikes.<\/p>\n

\u2018The US government can\u2019t afford to be silent on civilian deaths any more,\u2019 she said. \u2018The Peshawar High Court says that drone strikes are carried out \u201cat random\u201d and kill\u00a0hundreds of civilians. That\u2019s a damning charge that may be overstated. The US government must answer it with investigations and public disclosure about who is being killed and on what legal basis. If the US does not respond, it risks the appearance of indifference \u2013 to human life, and to the rule of law.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alice K. Ross, Bureau of Investigative Journalism click here for original article In the first major Pakistani court ruling on the legality of the CIA\u2019s drone campaign in the country, a Peshawar High Court judge said this morning that strikes are \u2018criminal offences\u2019. Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan ordered\u00a0Pakistan\u2019s government to \u2018use force if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[168],"class_list":["post-1519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-drones"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/DRONERQ-170_Sentinel_impression_3-view.png?fit=300%2C161&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1522,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions\/1522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}