This Live Web Seminar addressed "Unmanned Weapons and Challenges to International Humanitarian Law."  A record is available here. 

This live seminar explored the use of unmanned weapons systems – in particular unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) – and their implications for the protection of civilians in contemporary conflicts. The seminar addressed the following questions:

• How, if at all, does the use of UCAVs affect obligations related to the use of force under international humanitarian law?
• Despite the technological advances in accuracy and precision of targeting associated with UCAVs, why are there still high numbers of civilian deaths and injuries stemming from their use?
• How would the analysis change if a human rights framework, rather than an international humanitarian law framework, were to be applied to the use of UCAVs in different contexts?
• Are there any considerations particular to the use of UCAVs regarding the accountability of the military and of intelligence agencies?

This seminar examined these issues against the backdrop of the recent increase in use of UCAVs in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Naz Modirzadeh (Senior Associate at the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research) and Claude Bruderlein (Director of the Program) hosted the discussion. 

Panelists:

Vicki Divoll

Mary Ellen O'Connell

John Radsan

Peter W. Singer

John Barry and Evan Thomas, Military: The UAV Revoluation -- Up in the Sky, An Unblinking Eye, Newsweek, June 9, 2008.

BBC News, US warned on deadly drone attacks, October 28, 2009.

Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann (New America Foundation), Revenge of the Drones: An Analysis of Drone Strikes in Pakistan, October 19, 2009.

EJIL: Talk! (Blog), The United States' Use of Drones in Pakistan, September 2009.

John. J. Klein, The Problematic Nexus: Where Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles and the Law of Armed Conflict Meet, Air and Space Power Journal, July 2003.

Jane Mayer, The Predator War: What are the risks of the C.I.A.'s cover drone program?, The New Yorker, October 26, 2009.

John Radsan and Richard W. Murphy, Due Process and Targeted Killing of Terrorists, William Mitchell Legal Studies Research Paper, No. 114 (March 2009).

Erin A. McDaniel, Robot Wars: Legal and Ethical Dilemmas of Using Unmanned Robotic Systems in 21st Century Warfare and Beyond, M.M.A.S. Thesis (Faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas), 2008.

The Nation (Pakistan), Court throws out plea against drone attacks, October 28, 2009.

Mary Ellen O'Connell, Drones and the Law: What We Know, IntlLawGrrls Blog, December 7, 2009.

Mary Ellen O'Connell, Unlawful Killing with Combat Drones: A Case Study of Pakistan, 2004-2009, in Shooting to Kill: The Law Governing Lethal Force in Context, ed. Simon Bronitt (forthcoming).

Michael N. Schmitt, Precision attack and international humanitarian law, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 87, No. 859, September 2005.

Scott Shane, C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan, New York Times, December 3, 2009.

P.W. Singer, Military Robots and the Laws of War, The New Atlantis, Winter 2009.

P.W. Singer, Wired for war: the robotics revolution and conflict in the twenty-first century, 2009.

Murray Wardrop, Unmanned drones could be banned, says senior judge, The Telegraph (UK), July 6, 2009.