Drones: Major Public Launch:

Drone Attacks, International Law, and the Legal Obligation to Record Civilian Casualties of Armed Conflict

15 June 2011 - There is a legal obligation to record civilian casualties within international law.

This applies to the current drone attacks being conducted in Pakistan and Yemen by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). All of the parties involved in these drone attacks are under a duty to account for the civilian casualties that result from them and to ensure a mechanism is put in place to guarantee compliance with international law. This is not currently the case.

Professor Susan Breau, who is the Legal Consultant to Oxford Research Group’s Recording Casualties in Armed Conflict (RCAC) Programme, will present this crucial finding, a result of our extensive research, at a public event at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) on Thursday 23 June. Our legal team undertook this research to investigate the existing legal obligation to record casualties as part of our Making Casualty Recording a Legal Requirement project. This is one way that we are working towards our goal that every casualty, civilian and combatant, should be recorded.

The overall analysis of the situation in international law is provided in a first discussion paper, entitled "The Legal Obligation to Record Civilian Casualties of Armed Conflict" published on June 15th, and available here. On 23rd June, a second paper entitled "Drone Attacks, International Law, and the Recording of Civilian Casualties of War" will be published to coincide with the Geneva event. {continued}