In an effort to move the debate on armed drones forward, the Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) attempted to link the production of unmanned aerial vehicles to their military use and the human right implications thereof. AFET inserted an amendment to the draft opinion, calling for the exclusion of armed drones in the initiative until there is a Council...

EFAD-member Drone Wars UK has published an intriguing interview with a retired Royal Air Force officer who served as Deputy Commander Operations. In this interview, Air Marshall Greg Bagwell discussed many different aspects of the UK's use of Reapers, including the recruitment of pilots, Rules of Engagement, close cooperation with the United States, and the killing of British citizen Reyaad Khan. For...

In a decision published on 2 January 2018, the Upper Tribunal has decided that the ‘security bodies’ exemption under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) should not have been applied in a blanket fashion to exempt the legal advice that formed the basis of the lethal drone strike that killed two British citizens, Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin, in August...

On the 6th and 7th of December 2017, the Centre for Conflict Studies at the Utrecht University held a two-day conference on The Intimacies of Remote Warfare, dealing with the changing nature of warfare. Various experts in the field, including EFAD-members Chris Woods from Airwars and Jessica Dorsey from Rights Watch UK, shared their insights on the apparent paradoxical remote,...

Early December 2017, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) published a study with possible ways to address the risks and challenges surrounding the use of armed drones. The report is an outcome of consultations held with States, civil society and experts over the course of a year. EFAD members Elizabeth Minor (Article36) and Wim Zwijnenburg (PAX) were part...

Thursday, 7th December at 17:00. Lila, via Finocchiaro Aprile 160, Catania. On Thursday, ECCHR will be hosting an event in Catania, Sicily, with Andreas Schüller and Chantal Meloni of ECCHR and Shahzad Akbar, of the Foundation for Fundamental Rights of Pakistan. The topic is the role of Italy, and of its military base Sigonella, in facilitating the drone strikes carried out by the...

Amnesty International has written a letter to Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Assistant to President Trump for National Security Affairs, in order to receive clarification on new US policies regarding the use of force. Amnesty believes that these new policies will lead to "a sharp rise in unlawful strikes, civilian casualties and extrajudicial executions". Particularly the unlawfulness of targeted killings are...