A UN report soon to be released has exposed systematic torture and abuse in several Afghan prisons where international forces transfer detainees, including beatings, electrocutions, and threats of sexual assault. The widespread use of torture was well known by Afghans and internationals. But it's taken this report to...

The U.S. has killed hundreds of individuals in targeted killings, many outside traditional battlefields. It conducts these killings largely in secret, without public oversight, and without any clear legal justification. The CIA operation that killed bin Laden last week is but one instance of a tactic that has...

Drones may be new, futuristic weapons, but the U.S. drone campaign in Pakistan raises the oldest of international legal questions: what gives one country the right to violate the sovereignty of another?

For years, it has been widely accepted that Pakistani officials had tacitly consented to drone strikes...

Last week, U.S. drones reportedly struck a gathering of tribal elders in northern Pakistan, killing a significant number of civilians and sparking local outrage as well as rare denunciations from Pakistan's political and military leadership. The U.S. provided no official explanation for allegedly killing innocent civilians at a...

Politicians in Pakistan agree on little these days. In a country where partisan rivalry runs high, and regional and religious politics compound deep sectarian and ethnic differences, divisiveness is a constant.

However, in the last two weeks I have seen consensus around at least one issue: the need to address...

"The United States is a nation of laws," President Obama has declared, insisting that the US will uphold the rule of law in its fight against terrorism. Yet when it comes to drone strikes abroad, the US has not demonstrated that it is living up to this principle.

On January 23, 2009, the Obama Administration carried out its first drone strike in Pakistan, three days after the president's inauguration. But instead of striking the Taliban, the missile hit the house of Malik Gulistan Khan, a member of a pro-government peace committee, killing him along with three if his...

UN special rapporteur Philip Alston's recent report on targeted killings challenges the legality of drone strikes and highlights how legal uncertainty increases the risk to civilians from drone strikes.

The Obama Administration's legal justification for drone strikes has thus far been completely unsatisfactory. In much publicized

In Pakistan, the CIA is using smaller missiles and advanced surveillance technology to minimize civilian casualties caused by drone strikes. This suggests the CIA has learned a lesson from the Pentagon's experience with Afghan anger about civilian deaths across the border.

But serious concerns...

Following years of official silence, State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh's statements on the legality of drone strikes last week were welcomed by many.

But Koh failed to address serious concerns over the U.S.'s use of drones to kill al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, and in particular the...

In conflicts from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka, and Gaza to Georgia, governments, international organizations and NGOs work to assess losses suffered by civilians. That's one of the only ways to ensure they get help. In many conflicts, the casualty statistics are fiercely disputed -- but at least there are numbers...

Fruit tree, $60. Cow, $300. Serious injury, $1,500. These are typical compensation amounts some international troops offer to civilians harmed by their operations in Afghanistan. Such calculations seem cold and reading reports on compensation in the Marjah operation, one might think its not much different than haggling over...