By Saad Hammadi
Published in The Ploughshares Monitor Summer 2024
Drone attacks in Gaza and Ukraine have killed thousands and injured many more. But drones are not used only in war; indeed, so widespread is their use in surveillance that we could say that drones threaten the human right to privacy of all of us.
Militaries often praise drones and guided bomb units (GBUs) for their more precise—and therefore more ethical—targeting capabilities, but recent conflicts show something different. Indeed, the widespread use of drones in airstrikes has led to indiscriminate casualties among civilian populations and initiated a new era of terror.
Low-cost drones—as cheap as $400—are increasingly accessible to both state and nonstate actors. And so the question must be raised: Do existing humanitarian and human rights laws protect us from the damage that drones do?
Human rights disregarded in conflict
Recent conflicts reveal a deliberate disregard for the protection of civilians. Widespread missile and drone attacks in Ukraine have produced significant civilian casualties; the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported more than 10,000 killed and nearly 20,000 injured in the first two years of the current war. Israel’s widespread employment of airstrikes on densely populated areas of Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks has caused devastating destruction and many civilian deaths. Hundreds were killed in a single refugee camp in Jabalia.
High-tech capabilities are not being deployed in ways that minimize civilian harm and safeguard human rights. Instead, they are being combined to increase lethality and the amount of force available for use. For example, unguided or “dumb” bombs guided by artificial intelligence software that triangulates data from satellite imagery and aerial footage can now target and strike buildings and other structures. It appears that Israel’s invasion of Gaza was never intended to minimize civilian suffering: Israel’s defence spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated on October 9, 2023, that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”
High-tech capabilities are not being deployed in ways that minimize civilian harm and safeguard human rights. Instead, they are being combined to increase lethality and the amount of force available for use.
After interviewing serving and former Israeli intelligence officials, the Israeli-Palestinian +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language news site Local Call reported that the Israeli military command approved the killing of from 20 to 100 civilians to target a single operative of Hamas. According to a source in the Israeli intelligence community, “these are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
Civilians in these conflict zones exist in a state of constant uncertainty and fear.
Constant fear
But civilians in conflict zones are not the only ones living in fear.
Governments around the world are making drones available to police for surveillance purposes. CBC has obtained a privacy impact assessment of the use of aerial technology by the Hamilton, Ontario police service. Permitted uses include collecting pictures and measurements for car crashes, identifying suspects, and helping with ground search and rescue. Also allowed are discretionary “other uses.” While non-lethal, such uses raise red flags about possible privacy violations.
There are also credible concerns about the use of drones in cracking down on peaceful protestors exercising their rights. The Hamilton police used drones to monitor protestors during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to the city in January 2023. While drones might help police monitor and respond to violence, they have a chilling effect on protestors who are being watched and could be subsequently identified and intimidated.
Such use of drones on civilian populations is not limited to Canada. This past February, the Haryana police in India used drones to dispense teargas grenades and disperse protesters. The use of large quantities of chemicals can constitute excessive use of force, in violation of the right to peaceful assembly. Drone Wars UK reported that, in February 2010, U.S. drones killed 29 people in North Waziristan, Pakistan, in an attempt to kill Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior member of the Taliban. Targeted killings of top Iranian military commander Qasem Solaimani in Iraq in 2020 and Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011 by American forces illustrate the use of drones in extrajudicial executions, in violation of the right to life and due judicial procedures.
Freedom from fear
While mass civilian casualties from aerial bombardment stand out as a humanitarian concern, a less obvious but perhaps more insidious effect of drones is the instilling of everyday fear. The Airspace Tribunal, a people’s tribunal founded by artist Shona Illingworth and human rights lawyer Nick Grief, has been assembling testimony on all these fears from experts and witnesses in conflict zones and surveilled communities to determine whether a new human right to protect the freedom to live without fear from physical and psychological threat from above is needed to address the military and commercial exploitation of airspace and outer space.
Testimony indicates that drones in the sky cause civilians to suffer “anticipatory anxiety” as “they are reminded of previous strikes or are terrorised by the fear of death or injury through targeting errors.” Such anxiety reveals the harmful impacts unauthorized aerial devices could have on civilians in regions supposedly at peace. Even drones used in law enforcement are perceived to threaten individual privacy and safety. Such persistent fear can cause mental harm.
Illingworth and Grief argue that in situations of armed conflict, mental harm must be considered when applying the rule of proportionality, a key principle of the international humanitarian law that prohibits “excessive” incidental harms to civilian life and properties “in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” Of course, excessive civilian harms and concrete military advantage can be interpreted subjectively and so work should be done to tighten and make these definitions universal.
But civilians also need protection during peacetime. The increasing use of drones by non-military forces in peacetime creates an imminent physical and psychological threat to the right to life and privacy. The exercise of restraint and proportionate use of force are also stipulated in basic UN principles on use of force by law enforcement officials.
Freedom from fear is one of the highest aspirations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The growing threat from above calls for this aspiration to be legally protected to truly enjoy freedom, justice, and peace for “all members of the human family” in line with inherent human dignity and universal human rights.
A step toward achieving these rights would be for the United Nations to develop an international framework on the use of drones to prevent human rights violations. As well, national governments should develop clear policies on the use of drones, establish safeguards, and institute penalties for violations.
With technology changing rapidly, now is the time to expand our understanding and protection of human rights.
