Technology has made war feel as remote as a video game: armed drones hover above like silent arbiters of life and death, striking targets with the press of a button. These “precision” machines, initially confined to distant battlefields, are now used in routine counter-terrorism operations and even domestic policing. But who really pays the price for this unprecedented expansion of state power? As drones proliferate without the oversight to safeguard human rights, the right to life, once considered a non-negotiable tenet of international law, stands at a crossroads. The right to life faces threats from governments that act as judge, jury, and executioner from thousands of miles away.
Civilians in conflict zones, particularly in countries like China, Taiwan, Russia, and Ukraine, disproportionately suffer the impact of drone strikes. The lack of accountability and legal clarity surrounding these attacks threatens the fundamental right to life and raises serious concerns about their legitimacy and morality.
Lisa Reinsberg, a Professor of International Law and International Relations at UC Berkeley, highlights the challenges of ensuring that international humanitarian law protects civilians and non-combatants in these contexts. Gray moral areas of drone strikes exist “either because the drone is making part of that decision itself, or because the individual controlling [the] drone is so far removed from the situation that they’re not as sure about who’s who,” says Reinsberg. As a result, it becomes significantly easier to violate such legal protections. This detachment in decision-making, whether through automation or distance, underscores the ethical complexities inherent in modern drone warfare.
Militaristic drones have become increasingly common among major military powers, particularly the United States and the UK, for carrying out targeted strikes in conflict zones. “The use of drones can make it much easier for a state or any actor to launch an attack without that commitment to a kind of full-scale invasion or, armed conflict that involves actual troops or even expense,” says Reinsberg. Such minimization of casualties on the side of the perpetrator significantly increases the appeal of this method of warfare.
However, this growing trend is raising significant concerns about oversight, accountability, and the long-term implications for international human rights law, especially as rapid advancements in drone technology outpace legal frameworks and make it harder to assess intent.
“When lethal force… can be used against an individual, and [with] drone warfare or the use of drones—especially if we’re talking about semi-autonomous, or in the future, fully autonomous weapons—that calculus is no longer necessarily being made only by a human, and it’s not necessarily as transparent or documented as it might be with other forms of weapons” observes Reinsberg.
In other words, the shift toward autonomy in lethal decision-making reduces transparency and weakens accountability, leaving a dangerous gap in our ability to evaluate compliance with international law. The deployment of lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) amplifies these issues, as such systems, with limited or no human intervention, raise profound ethical and legal questions about the future of warfare.
Unlike drones, which still require human control for targeting and execution, LAWs can select and engage targets independently, challenging existing frameworks that rely on human oversight to ensure compliance with IHL. The integration of such technologies not only escalates the lethality of military engagements but also risks creating accountability gaps, as it becomes unclear who is responsible for decisions made by autonomous systems. This technology has drawn significant criticism from human rights advocates and policymakers who fear that without strict regulation, LAWs could lead to an era of warfare with fewer constraints on the use of force, resulting in a destabilized global security environment.
While human rights advocates, including Human Rights Watch and the UN Secretary-General, use terms like “killer robots” to convey the dangers of lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs), Professor Lisa Reinsberg warns that this issue is far from dystopian fiction, it is a very real and pressing concern. Reinsberg explains that the widespread deployment of LAWs is “under development, and it is a distinct possibility that in the near future, as part of armed conflict, it’s a full-fledged reality.”
In conflict zones like the Taiwan Strait and Ukraine, the frequent use of drones brings civilian casualties and suffering to the forefront of the debate on modern warfare. While drones offer strategic advantages, their presence and use also expose civilians to increased risks, both immediate and lasting. In the Taiwan Strait, escalating tensions between China and Taiwan have raised fears of a potential armed conflict in which drones would likely play a critical role. Professor Reinsberg asserts that it is a “powerful tool to just sort of intimidate a population or a government of any kind without actually having to engage in conflict.” Although no large-scale armed engagement has occurred to date, China has conducted numerous drone flyovers into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). These incursions are not mere surveillance tactics but acts of intimidation designed to demonstrate military dominance. In one incident, a drone hovered above civilian areas near the Kinmen Islands, alarming residents and underscoring the risks civilians would face if these tactics escalated into armed attacks. While no missiles were fired, the presence of drones in Taiwanese airspace contributes to a climate of fear, signaling that civilians could become targets if tensions were to break into open conflict.
In Ukraine, drone strikes have had more severe and visible impacts on civilians as the war with Russia continues. Both sides have deployed drones extensively, with strikes often resulting in civilian casualties. One tragic example occurred in the city of Zaporizhzhia, where a Russian drone strike hit a residential apartment complex, killing several civilians and injuring dozens. This incident, one of many, highlights the devastating potential of drones when used in populated areas. In eastern Ukraine, residents frequently face the threat of drone attacks on their homes, schools, and hospitals. The targeted use of drones in civilian areas has led to widespread casualties and damage to essential infrastructure, leaving many people without access to basic services and shelter. The insistence and frequency of these strikes has even led news sources like BBC to claim that Russian drones are hunting civilians. Yet at the same time, it is worth noting the increased capabilities of the Ukrainian military due to drone usage. According to Reinsberg, “drones have enabled [Ukraine] to have a much greater fighting capacity with limited resources than it otherwise would.”
The widespread use of drones in conflict zones poses an urgent threat to the right to life, as civilians in regions like Taiwan and Ukraine increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs of military technology. As incidents in both areas demonstrate, the psychological, economic, and social tolls of drone warfare extend beyond immediate casualties, leaving lasting scars on communities. Vulnerable groups, in particular, face the highest risks, often with little recourse to protect themselves or seek justice. The civilians impacted by such warfare are forced to change their behaviors in accordance with the threat of drones, increasing social isolation and self-objectification, thus diminishing impacted civilians’ quality of life. Without robust international regulations to safeguard human rights and limit the use of drones in civilian areas, the human impact of these technologies will only deepen, challenging the protections that international law is meant to guarantee.
The rapid expansion of drone use in conflict zones and beyond has outpaced the development of comprehensive legal frameworks, creating significant gaps in oversight and accountability. Under international humanitarian law (IHL), the use of force is constrained by principles of distinction, proportionality, and necessity, yet drone strikes often occur in regions where the applicability of IHL is ambiguous. Strikes in these “grey zones” challenge traditional definitions of battlefields and push the boundaries of lawful military engagement. Furthermore, as Professor Lisa Reinsberg notes, semi-autonomous and autonomous drones may no longer rely solely on human decision-makers. This autonomy reduces “the degree of transparency that many would have liked to have seen in terms of who was being targeted and why that decision process [was made],” remarks Reinsberg.
The global proliferation of drones, driven by decreasing costs and improved access to drone technology, has transformed the landscape of warfare, democratizing military capabilities. Today, governments, corporations, and even non-state actors can acquire drones, heightening the potential for misuse. While drones offer strategic advantages, such as increased reach and reduced risk to personnel, they also risk destabilizing global security. As authoritarian regimes and powerful democracies alike adopt drones for surveillance and offensive operations, the lack of international transparency increases the potential for abuses of power. Despite this propensity for harm, drone warfare can in some instances offer the moral advantage of reducing the risk to military personnel by allowing for targeted strikes against specific threats while minimizing civilian casualties, thereby potentially preserving lives on both sides of a conflict.
The global rise in drone warfare has created an urgent need for robust international human rights laws to safeguard civilians, who increasingly find themselves on the frontlines of conflicts they had no role in creating. As drones and autonomous weaponry evolve, they amplify the risks to human life, operating with unprecedented speed, range, and precision, often without direct human oversight. This detachment not only makes civilian casualties more likely but also complicates accountability, when decisions are made at such a distance, or even autonomously, the opportunity for transparent review and legal recourse fades. Civilians in conflict zones, particularly those in under-resourced or isolated areas, are disproportionately affected, facing immense psychological trauma, economic hardship, and daily threats to their safety.
The absence of clear, enforceable protections leaves these populations vulnerable to unchecked military power, heightening the possibility of human rights abuses and even war crimes. International human rights laws that specifically address drone warfare would provide vital protections, setting clear parameters for where, when, and how drones can be used. Such regulations would ensure that the right to life, a principle that underpins all human rights, is respected, even in modern warfare.
Professor Reinsberg finds this to be “one of the strongest tools that an entity like the UN or any international organization has at its disposal. To shepherd that process and try to get to a point where we do have binding law.” Strengthening and updating international laws to govern this technology would also help foster greater accountability, ensuring that states are held responsible for the actions carried out by drones, and creating a safer, more just world for all. In the face of such rapidly evolving technology, the global community must take collective action, closing the legal gaps and preventing the normalization of technologies that threaten to erode the human rights protections that should be guaranteed to every person, regardless of nationality or geography.
Featured Image Source: Army Times
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