The Drone Problem: Expedite the Creation of International Rules!

Unmanned drones, which can attack an enemy from some distance away via remote operation without exposing our troops to danger, sometimes cause the humanitarian problem of involving civilian bystanders in the conflict. The lack of clear international rules regarding their usage is leading to a new sort of arms race.

Ben Emmerson, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, conducted a survey at the request of the U.N. Human Rights Commission regarding civilian damages from unmanned drone strikes; the report was made public in October. Primarily American and British military forces carry out unmanned drone strikes against the international terrorist group al-Qaida and the militant Islamic Taliban organization.

According to the report, in at least 330 attacks carried out in Pakistan since 2004, over 2,200 people have died. Among them, 400 were civilians and 200 were noncombatants. It appears that over 50 civilians have died in Afghanistan and over 20 have been killed or wounded in Yemen.

On account of these findings, Emmerson has made an appeal that each country expedite the creation of rules. There are various legal issues regarding unmanned drone strikes that have not been agreed on internationally, which indicates a strong possibility that the use of unmanned drone strikes — by the U.S. in particular, using the war on terror as a pretext and failing to establish a clear boundary for the battlefield — is a violation of international standards.

Held in Geneva in mid-November, a special international conference for a treaty on the use of conventional weapons agreed to begin discussions in May of next year about possible regulations on “lethal robotic weaponry.” However, both the U.S. and Great Britain are making the claim that, since unmanned drones do not automatically discern and kill an enemy, they are not robotic weaponry.

The proliferation of unmanned drones is a problem because their classification as weapons is vague, and there are no rules regarding their use. The number of countries that possess unmanned drones rose from 41 in 2005 to 76 in 2011, reports a U.S. government inspection. There is also a survey that indicates that as many as 87 countries possess them at the moment. Many countries use them for surveillance or investigative activities within their borders and surrounding regions; however, 26 countries possess the same drones, or similar models, that the U.S. uses for attack purposes.

Japan is considering introducing America’s latest state-of-the-art unmanned surveillance drone to the Self-Defense Force. It is possible that China’s unmanned drones, which fly through the area surrounding the Senkaku Islands, could accidentally invite an armed conflict. Japan, too, is not totally unconnected to the danger of unmanned drones that lack international rules.