Terrorism is a central concern in contemporary international security and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are rapidly becoming the counterterrorism weapon of choice. However, this is not without raising important ethical questions. This paper argues that UAV warfare poses significant challenges to Just War’s two key jus in bello requirements: discrimination and proportionality.
Firstly, UAV warfare challenges the discrimination criterion. Indeed, although UAVs offer the possibility of highly discriminate and precise strikes, the targeting principles behind the strike are cause for concern, especially with signature strikes.
Secondly, UAV warfare is challenging for the proportionality requirement since it removes possibility for capture, surrender, or non-lethal strikes, which can lead to a highly disproportionate use of lethal force.
Finally, this paper argues that the focus should be on the strategies behind UAV use as opposed to the technology itself if their use is to be just in regards to the just war tradition.
