Abstract

This chapter considers the nature of drone strikes used for law enforcement purposes. It looks at the limited extent to which lethal drone strikes can be used in pure 'law enforcement' situations (that is those situations not considered to be armed conflict under international law) , before considering the use of drone strikes for law enforcement purposes (namely counter-terrorism) within and under the guise of extant armed conflicts. The chapter challenges the presumption that drone strikes during armed conflicts are necessarily of those conflicts and therefore governed by the more permissive framwork of international humanitarian law, and instead emphasises the continued applicability of human rights law which in many cases should be seen to be the dominant paradigm of law governing drone strikes.