Of course, this certainly does not permit any sort of “shoot first, ask questions later,” approach, but rather counsels a prudent exercise of caution before assigning a status, one way or another. Wariness and circumspection as status is sorted out can keep soldiers alive. I would add that in practical, military terms it can be extraordinarily dangerous in hostile situations to automatically presume any person or object is a civilian, non-threat. Instead, what is required is a “good faith” determination of lawful targetability of the person(s) or object(s) “based on the information available to in light of the circumstances ruling at the time.” Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual, in order to lawfully target a person or object as a legitimate military objective (as defined in ¶ 5.6), the propriety of that action cannot be based on “merely hypothetical or speculative considerations.” ![]() warfighters.įor example, he points out that under the U.S. As Ted details in his essay below, creating a presumption would add no value because of what the law already requires, and would only serve to burden U.S. ![]() The advocates seem to think that such a presumption might somehow better protect civilians in the targeting process, but that simply is untrue. He is taking on the rebuttal of an effort among some academics and others to characterize as a matter of customary international law, a legal presumption of civilian status on persons and objects in situations of armed conflict–even in the absence of any supporting evidence. Today I am extremely pleased to welcome a new Lawfire ® contributor, Air Force Col Ted Richard.
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