The New York Times has reported that the Trump administration is set to dismantle Obama-era restrictions on drone strikes and ground raids outside traditional warzones (see story here). EFAD Member Reprieve has found that since Trump took office, at least 30 civilians have been killed in ground raids and drone strikes in Yemen, where the US is not formally at war. The...

24 September, 2017 /

On the 25th of September, Rete Italiana per il Disarmo, ECCHR and CILD will host a conference in Milan entitled: “Armed drones in Italy and Europe: Problems and Perspectives Between military strategy, transparency issues and protection of fundamental human rights.” CILD has more information on its website here. A number of experts from EFAD organizations will be speaking and present during the...

20 September, 2017 /

Earlier this month, 19 civil society organizations, including 9 members of the European Forum on Armed Drones, raised concerns about US-led initiative on the export and subsequent use of armed and strike-enabled aerial vehicles. The statement highlights several issues around the risks and limitations posed by the US’ Joint Declaration, most concerning about how these proposals may contain standards that are...

12 September, 2017 /

On the 5th of September 2017, French Minister of Defense, Florance Parly, announced that France has decided to arm its surveillance drones in West Africa as part of counter-terrorism operations against suspected Islamists militants. No timeframe was given for the arming of these nor was it clear what framework would guide their use. Despite Parly’s mention that “The drones wouldn’t become...

05 September, 2017 /

German officials are trying to whitewash the country’s role in a U.S. drone strike that killed an innocent Somalian herdsman, according to the Open Society Justice Initiative. Lawyers backed by the organization filed an appeal today against German prosecutors who have refused to investigate the strike, launched in 2012 with crucial support from two U.S. military bases in Germany. In June...

30 August, 2017 /

Chris Cole, Director of DroneWars UK writes: “An information tribunal has upheld the MoD’s decision to refuse to release the number of British armed drones deployed against ISIS and their location, despite such information being released by the UK about its ‘manned’ aircraft. In the just released open judgement (a closed judgement has also been produced but will not been made available...

17 August, 2017 /

Rights Watch UK’s Legal and Policy Director, Adriana Edmeades writes: “The U.K.’s approach to drone warfare is opaque at all levels of policy and practice. Officially, the U.K. has no formal drone program equivalent to that in the U.S. The U.K. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into targeting killing concluded that, instead, armed drone strikes occur in an...

11 July, 2017 /

In 2015 the Dutch human rights law firm Prakken d’Oliveira took legal action against the Dutch government on behalf of two Somali nomads who became victims of a drone attack when they were hit by a US missile in January 2014. The victims claim that the Dutch government is also responsible given its intelligences services allegedly shared essential metadata that informed...

09 May, 2017 /