US: Clarify Position on Targeted Killings | Human Rights Watch

US: Clarify Position on Targeted Killings | Human Rights Watch

Ruling on Targeted Cleric Highlights Need to Explain Legal Basis for Lethal Attacks

December 7, 2010

(New York) - The US government should immediately clarify its legal rationale for targeted killings, Human Rights Watch said in a letter today to President Barack Obama.

A federal court judge's dismissal of a lawsuit on December 7, 2010, challenging the US government's targeted killing program abroad underscores the urgent need for the Obama administration to publicly explain its policy, Human Rights Watch said. Judge John Bates of the US district court in Washington, DC dismissed the lawsuit on procedural grounds but did not address the merits of the case.

"President Obama should answer the fundamental questions of how his administration determines whether a person may be targeted," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Such operations may be lawful under certain circumstances, but absent clear boundaries, they will inevitably violate international law and set a dangerous precedent for abusive regimes around the globe."

The lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, challenged the US government's decision to authorize the targeted killing of American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to be hiding in Yemen. The US government says al-Awlaki is linked to the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula but has not brought formal charges against him. The lawsuit also sought to have the government disclose the legal standard it uses to place US citizens on alleged government "kill lists."

The Obama administration dramatically expanded the use of targeted killings outside of traditional battlefields following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Many of these killings are conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency through the use of Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems (drones). The US government asserts that it has authority under international law to use lethal force outside of clearly defined war zones because it is engaged in a global armed conflict with al Qaeda and associated forces.

Human Rights Watch recognizes that the US government has a responsibility to respond to national security threats. The deliberate use of lethal force can be legal in operations involving a combatant on a genuine battlefield, or in a law enforcement action in which the threat to life is imminent and there is no reasonable alternative.

"US government claims that the entire world is a battleground in which the laws of war are applicable undermine the protections of international law," Roth said. "This discredited notion invites the application of lethal force by other countries in situations where the US would strongly object to its use."

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Legal challenge to US assassination policy divides rights groups | World news | The Guardian

Image via WikipediaLegal challenge to US assassination policy divides rights groups | World news | The Guardian

Civil liberties groups criticised for representing Anwar al-Awlaki, an Islamist cleric targeted by US for assassination

Mark Tran

Anwar al-Awlaki has openly urged followers to kill several people, among them Salman Rushdie. Photograph: AP

Human rights advocates have criticised two US civil liberties groups for mounting a legal challenge to the Obama administration's policy of targeted assassinations by representing the interests of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemen-based radical cleric.

Last week, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) began a lawsuit in a federal court in Washington in connection with the US decision to authorise the killing of Awlaki, the only US citizen known to have been targeted for assassination.

The two groups have been retained by Awlaki's father, Nasser al-Awlaki. But a CCR board member has distanced herself from the group's decision to represent Awlaki's interests. Karima Bennoune, a law professor at Rutgers school of law, Newark, New Jersey, has gone public with her misgivings at the CCR's decision, reflecting a debate within human rights groups on how to deal with Islamist fundamentalists.

"I support the important work the centre has done on torture and extraordinary rendition," said Bennoune, "but I expressed grave concern at CCR offering to represent Awlaki's interests pro bono. Anwar al-Awlaki is not a detainee; he is still at liberty and able to gravely harm others by inciting and advocating murder."

Bennoune pointed out that Awlaki published an article in al-Qaida's English language magazine, Inspire, in July openly calling for assassinations of several people, including a young woman cartoonist in Seattle and Salman Rushdie. This was at around the time the CCR was offering to represent Awlaki's father, she said.

Bennoune, who is of Algerian descent, also expressed fears that the CCR and the ACLU were in danger of "sanitising" Awlaki to western audiences.

"Since the inception of the case," she said, "there has been increased mystification of who Anwar al-Awlaki is in liberal and human rights circles in the United States. This may in part have resulted from the fact that a highly reputable organisation like CCR was willing to represent his interests, and described him only as 'a Muslim cleric' or 'an American citizen', and repeatedly suggested that the government did not possess evidence against Awlaki."

The CCR has come under fire in the UK, too. Chetan Bhatt, director of the centre for the study of human rights at the LSE, who was approached by the CCR for advice on Awlaki, said: "I have considerable respect for CCR. But in this case they have made a serious error of ethical judgment. Does a highly respected organisation, founded in the midst of historic struggles for civil rights and racial justice, now wish to be perceived by some as al-Qaida's legal team? Can you fight extra-judicial assassinations by standing alongside someone who advocates extra-judicial assassinations?"

Five prominent Algerian non-governmental organisations, including associations of victims of terrorism and women's groups, have also sent a strongly worded letter to the CCR expressing their dismay that the group has decided to represent Awlaki's interests.

Vincent Warren, executive director of the CCR, argued that his group had actively opposed torture, indefinite detention and targeted killing for years by filing lawsuits against the US government, which few organisations had the capacity to do. "That's what we do," he said. "We file lawsuits. We had a dramatic effect on US policy and the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo."

As for the Awlaki case, Warren said the focus was on US policy and the US government "because we don't believe the US should be wreaking violence for political reasons. It should be up to a court, not just the US government, to decide whether Awlaki poses a threat. The US should not be conducting the killing of US citizens outside the legal process, far away from any battlefield."

The case echoes a dispute in the UK early this year when the head of Amnesty International's gender unit left the group because of its links with Islamist pressure groups. Gita Sahgal fell out with Amnesty after claiming that the charity's links with Moazzam Begg, a former inmate at Guantánamo bay, and his group, Cageprisoners, were undermining its campaign for women's rights.

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