PAKISTAN

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT ’WILL I BE NEXT?’

SURVIVORS DENIED JUSTICE AND REPARATION
Page 35:: 'The survivors of drone attacks and the families of the victims have had little or no chance of securing justice. The USA and Pakistan both have obligations under international law to investigate these'. 

US OBLIGATIONS – INVESTIGATE, PROSECUTE, REMEDY
'The USA has an obligation under international law to ensure prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations are conducted into the cases documented in this report and in all other strikes where there are reasonable grounds to indicate that unlawful killings have occurred'.

ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND EFFECTIVE REPARATION
Page 36: 'Crimes under international law, such as extrajudicial executions and war crimes, must be investigated and those responsible must be brought to justice in public and fair trials without recourse to the death penalty'.  

'States responsible for violating their obligations under international human rights and/or international humanitarian law are also required to provide victims with adequate, effective and prompt reparation for the harm suffered'.

'CIA director John Brennan has stated that the USA tries “to determine whether there was any collateral damage, including civilian deaths” after strikes, and leaks by US officials suggest that the USA relies on drone video to identify the number of individuals killed and their identities. It is crucial that the US government not presumptively count the bodies of “militaryaged males” as combatants or individuals lawfully killed, as suggested by past statements from US officials.'

WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL DEATH TOLL
'WASHINGTON — Partially lifting the secrecy that has cloaked one of the United States’ most contentious tactics for fighting terrorists, the Obama administration on Friday said that it believed that airstrikes it has conducted outside conventional war zones like Afghanistan have killed 64 to 116 civilian bystanders and about 2,500 members of terrorist groups. The official civilian death count is far lower than estimates compiled by independent organizations that try to track what the government calls targeted killings, and human rights groups expressed doubts about the reliability of the government’s numbers. Most of the strikes have been carried out by drones in chaotic places like Libya, tribal Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, though a small number have involved traditional aircraft or cruise missiles'.

NOTE I: The debate on how many of the killed individuals were innocent comes down to: if the White House cannot name every one of the 2,500 (which they cannot), how can they claim that they were terrorists? They do not even know who they are.

NOTE II: The term 'extrajudicial killing' covers any killing that is not lawful execution of the death penalty (which naturally requires a trial). A random murder in the street satisfies the requirements for being an 'extrajudicial killing', which simply means 'killing outside of the legal system'. There was already legal term for this: 'murder'.

THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM FROM EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS
UN COVENANT ON CIVIL RIGHTS
Article 6
1. Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.
2. In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court.