ABSTRACT
Targeted killing is a longstanding feature of war. High-value individuals (HVIs) have been targeted in armed conflicts for much of human history. Current debate about the legality and ethical permissibility of targeted killing focuses largely on the notion that HVIs are known personally by the forces targeting them. In some instances this has historical precedent. Allied operations to kill Reinhard Heydrich and Isoroku Yamamoto during the Second World War are well known examples of one way of targeting specific enemy personnel. These individuals were well known military commanders who played pivotal roles in enemy operations, and their deaths substantially benefited the allies’ military campaign. However, current high-value targeting (HVT) operations are considered to be qualitatively different, for two reasons. The first is that current HVT operations take place in an ambiguous conflict setting. The war on terror, broadly defined, does not lend itself to simple comparison with the conventional wars from which most historical examples are drawn. The second is that the type of individual considered to be of high value has changed. While Heydrich and Yamamoto were senior military leaders at or near the head of clear chains of command, many HVIs in the West’s ongoing fight against various non-state actors are relatively unknown to the public and are far less senior than their conventional counterparts.
