Drones and International Law
A Techno-Legal Machinery

The technological characteristics of drones, together with the law, have been instrumental in expanding warfare in time and space in the counter-terrorism context.

Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi (Author)

9781009346559, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 July 2023

256 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.56 kg

'Twenty-one years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, one might reasonably ask, 'do we need another book on armed drones?'. The originality and insight yielded by the analysis and research found in this book answers the question: Yes, we need this one.' Nehal Bhuta, Professor of Public International Law, University of Edinburgh

Through an analysis of the use of drones, Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi explores the ways in which, in the context of counterterrorism, war, technology and the law interact and reshape one another. She demonstrates that drone programs are techno-legal machineries that facilitate and accelerate the emergence of a new kind of warfare. This new model of warfare is individualized and de-materialized in the sense that it focuses on threat anticipation and thus consists in identifying dangerous figures (individualized warfare) rather than responding to acts of hostilities (material warfare). Revolving around threat anticipation, drone wars endure over an extensive timeframe and geographical area, to the extent that the use of drones may even be seen, as appears to be the case for the United States, as part of the normal functioning of the state, with profound consequences for the international legal order.

1. Drone Programs Reconfiguring War, Law and Societies Around Threat Anticipation
2. Contexts
3. The Institutionalization of Drone Programs
4. Targeting Hostile Individuals
5. Endless Wars
6. Anywhere Wars
7. Rituals of Sovereignty
8. Epilogue
Index.

Subject Areas: Ordnance, weapons technology [TTMW], International humanitarian law [LBBS], Public international law [LBB]