ABSTRACT
This book investigates the law and practice of lethal targeting in the context of US contemporary counterinsurgency operations, where the insurgents internationally abandoned the wear of military uniforms, and the counterinsurgents use advanced digital technologies to illuminate a boundless terrain as their field of operation. Instead of following the legal impact of the hyper-visualisation of warfare – embodied in the use of military drones, this book asks a sociolegal question: What use, if any, does visual technology have for law in the first place? In answering this question, this chapter argues that the principle can best be understood as a modality of visuality, i.e. a materially dependent regime of setting values upon modes of appearance and visibility in an area of battle, with the view to the legitimation of the use of lethal violence. Drawing on a rich tapestry of theoretical frameworks, military manuals, and real-life case studies, this book redescribes the principle of distinction to argue that categories such as legitimate targets are products of modes of knowing paired with modes of seeing – knowledge–vision composite – that originally come together in the military uniform as the legal material of the principle of distinction and laws' analogue visual technology.
