Targeted Killing: Protection or Violation of the Principles of Humanitarian Law? Reviewing the US Operation in Afghanistan

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 university of qom

2 Public International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Qom, Qom

10.22091/ijicl.2024.9277.1061

Abstract

Targeted killing is the premeditated, freely performed, intentional killing of a uniquely identified individual person (or group). This concept is started to be common around 20 years ago, when firstly used by Israeli forces. After 9/11 attacks, the United States of America declared a war against Al-Qaedaand its affiliated groups; and called it a self-defense against so called terrorist organizations. Whereas this conflict could be categorized as the non-international conflict, according to common Geneva Conventions article 3 and Additional protocol II article 1, the international humanitarian law(IHL) is dominated in this conflict. The main principles of IHL, distinction, necessity and proportionality would be considered in the targeted killings done by the USA in its operations in Afghanistan during the years of conflict. The USA was not successful in obeying of IHL principles in its operations in Afghanistan. The essence of targeted killing would be observed during the paper to show that there is no obligation according to IHL principles to ban targeted killing by itself and as a military tactic, it should be considered separately in each case.

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Iranian Journal of International and Comparative Law

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 15 July 2024

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