ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the legal mechanisms aiming at assessing criminal responsibility for the commission of unlawful targeted killings. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions repeatedly asked the United States to explain how they justify the use of drones to target and kill individuals. The use of armed drones in warfare, in particular as a means to execute State-sponsored targeted killings, raises serious concerns. Drones use in warfare and more generally in military operations that imply the recourse to lethal force raises a number of issues at different levels: political, moral, military, legal, and philosophical. But drones are in principle not different from other targeted killings methods: a missile fired from a drone is no different from any other commonly used weapon. The opportunity to bring a targeted killing case before the US judiciary appeared in conjunction with the targeted killing of some American citizens by US drone strikes.
