ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses legal-policy challenges associated with armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). It also addresses such challenges associated with autonomous weapon systems. The chapter argues that the United States and its closest allies can and should adapt the law of armed conflict to deal with these emergent technologies, but doing so effectively will probably require higher levels of public transparency about weapon systems than they are accustomed to. UAVs piloted from afar are already a significant component of the United States’ arsenal, and they are proliferating rapidly worldwide. Armed UAV technology, on this view, specially enables the extension of uses of force lawful only in so-called active zones of hostilities to many other places far from the ‘battlefield.’ The issues of target discrimination and accountability really go to the way UAVs are used and the policies and protocols governing targeting decisions, rather than to the technologies themselves.
