ABSTRACT
Arguably the most intensely contested aspect of the US drone strikes away from traditional battlefields has been the number of civilians who have been killed, and whether these deaths (and other harms) have exceeded what might be legally or ethically justified. Over the last decade critics and defenders of drone strikes have clashed over a number of related issues with no decisive resolution. They have disagreed about the legal paradigm that applies to these US drone strikes (law of armed conflict vs law enforcement), the conditions under which the deliberate use of lethal force would be justified (when there is an immediate threat to life vs when consistent with military necessity and the rules of distinction and proportionality), and over the number of civilians actually being killed (thousands of people and 98 percent of all those killed vs 182 and around 4 percent of those killed). But these debates have done little to alter the status quo—the strikes remain popular in the United States and unpopular in most other places; the US government has, if anything, doubled-down on defending the legality and efficacy of its policy while critics have become even more aggressive in investigating and denouncing the campaign.
