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A United Nations special rapporteur on Thursday urged to conduct investigations into U.S. drone attacks during counter-terrorism operations as part of the efforts to protect the human rights of victims of terrorism. "International law required the United States to ensure that every single one of those killings is investigated wholly independently," Ben Emmerson, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, told reporters at a press conference held after a two-day "interactive dialogue" in the ongoing 20th session of the Human Rights Council. Emmerson said he will take measures over the coming months "to draw to the attention of the international community the specific legal obligation ... to secure fully independent, prompt and impartial investigations into every single attack extra-territorially in which a State is responsible for killing another individual in a counter-terrorism operation in the territory of another State." He said that from 2004 to March 2012, about 300 drone strikes took place in Pakistan alone, which caused civilian casualties besides deaths of militants and extra-territorial targeted drone strikes against individuals have also occurred in Yeman, Somalia and Afghanistan. "As far as my mandate is concerned, the critical issues are transparency and oversight," he said. He said the investigations should be conducted by a fully independent mechanism established by "the States that have conducted such operations including the United States," or through an independent monitoring mechanism of the United Nations. He recommended the adoption of a specific international instrument which acknowledges the suffering of the victims of terrorism, protects them from further abuse, and provides adequate support and reparation. He also urged the States to provide detailed information on their current national law and procedure, and its compatibility with the framework principles set out in his report to the council by the end of September. He asked the States to recognize that those who are killed or seriously injured in terrorist attacks are in all cases the victims of grave violations of their human rights and stressed the protection of victims should not be used as an excuse for more tortures or human rights abuses. "The aim of this report is to nail the lie that the way to protect victims is to abuse the human rights of those suspected of involvement in terrorism. That is not what they are calling for," he said. Early on Wednesday, Chrisof Heyns, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, also called for more transparency and accountability by the United States in its drone strike program and targetted killings, and called on the international community to set a clear legal framework for the use of drones and other targetted killings, to avoid a dangerous precedent being set. Heyns said that the unanswered questions on how U.S. decisions are made regarding identification of targets, statistics on drones fired and accountability regarding the killing of civilians, were very worrying and that he would be following up on this issue. The 20th session of the Human Rights Council will run until July 6 and will debate reports from independent experts tasked with investigating different human rights issues across the globe, including a report on human rights situation of Syria.. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as sun shade netting , pulsator milk machine for wholesale, and more. For more , please visit iPhone Camera Module today!
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