Military Drones Essay

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I. Introduction Back in the 1800s, no one would even imagine using an unmanned aerial vehicle in the military. Through the years, however, technology has changed the way we live our life and how we fight our wars. From having to fight only on grounds to killing a target using an aircraft that is being controlled thousand of miles away. This paper will concentrate on the military usage of unmanned aerial vehicle also known as drones. The United States military uses two types of drones: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV). II. Background Some people would think that drones are new technology, however the technology could be traced back as early as the First World War. During the first World Wars, the United States started several radio control aircraft projects but those projects were never finished (Hart, p.6). However during the second World Wars, the United States’ military…show more content…
Since terrorists are consider being civilians, they should be captured and be prosecuted and punishment accordingly to the justice system. One of the IHL, International Human Rights Law, requirement for lethal force to be employed is offering the target an opportunity to surrender. However as drones are not capable of offering surrender before the uses of lethal force, the used of UCAV is not legal in situations governed by the IHRL (Lewis). According to the international law, “targeted lethal force may be used only under specific and narrowly defined circumstances- against combatants in a recognized armed conflict and those directly participating in hostilities or who pose an immediate threat to innocent life and when capture is not feasible and would involve significant military risk and potential loss of life” (Cortright, p 12-13). With the amount of drone strikes conducted, many questions whether if those strikes really satisfy the requirement of the international law

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