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UN experts call for more US transparency on drones
[Al Ahram] Two UN human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
Sherlocks called for more transparency from the United States and other countries about their drone strikes program, saying their secrecy is the biggest obstacle to determining the impact pact on civilian casualties.

Ben Emmerson and Christof Heyns, who presented two reports on the subject at the United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
on Friday, also called on other countries to speak up about when deadly drone strikes are acceptable. They said the lack of consensus risks creating anarchy as more countries acquire the technology.

Emmerson said the US has justified some drone strikes against terrorist targets in other countries by arguing that it is engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda with no boundaries. He said other countries disagree with that analysis but few have spelled out their own positions.

"We all recognize that the moment other states start to use this technology in similar ways, we are facing a situation which could escalate into a breakdown of peace and security," said Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism.

In his report, Emmerson said he received statistics from the Pak government indicating that at least 2,200 people have been killed in drone strikes in that country since 2004. Of those, at least 400 were civilians. But Emmerson said independent verification is difficult and the involvement of the CIA in counter-terrorism operations in both Pakistain and Yemen "has created an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency."

Emerson said that any time civilians are killed "the state responsible is under an obligation to conduct a prompt, independent and impartial fact-finding inquiry and to provide a detailed and public explanation."

The US considers its drone program in Pakistain to be a key weapon against bully boy groups that it says stages cross-border forays into neighboring Afghanistan. But many Paks believe the strikes kill large numbers of civilians, raising tensions between the two countries and complicating their cooperation in the fight against bad boys.

Posted by: Fred 2013-10-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=378411