Drones to Monitor Human Rights
A recent controversial New York Times op-ed ‘drones for human rights’ by Andrew Stoboand and Mark Hanis has been the cause of major debates around human rights circles.The article proposes for a new ‘solution’ in solving systemic human rights abuse in conflict zones. In the article they write ‘A drone would let us count demonstrators, gun barrels and pools of blood. And the evidence could be broadcast for a global audience, including diplomats at the United Nations and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court’ This argument further endeavors to add surveillance as a new course of humanitarian action besides the known customary methods of advocacy and enforcement. The article states ‘We could record the repression in Syria with unprecedented precision and scope. The better the evidence, the clearer the crimes, the higher the likelihood that the world would become as outraged as it should be’ This outlook to solving human rights abuses seems like an attractive solution for those of us interested in preventing human rights abuses. However it is still a pre-mature argument as it ignores other fundamental aspects as there has always been an ubiquitous availability of information on human rights abuses however the problem has been attributed to the lack of political will to solve human rights by states, the inadequate response to these violations as well as the lack of legal framework on use of drones in international law. The article suggest that human rights organizations can now use drones to monitor abuses however it forgets to mention that the same human rights groups have in the past condemned the use of drones as they view it as a violator to human rights itself. The emergence of human rights in international law has placed the rights of man on a pedestal almost equal to the rights of the state after a long progressive battle with the inception of the ICC. Allowing drones to monitor human rights abuses or giving states the carteblanche to use drones against perceived ‘terrorists’ would be a setback to the achievement of rights of the individual as stipulated in the UDHR since it will undermine the role of the Rome Statute as well as eliminates the human value of giving testimony or providing evidence that a human rights violation occurred as drones will solely be providing the imagery satellite account to a human rights abuses. Another nascent issue to this myopic outlook is the violation of a country’s sovereignty during surveillance by drones as well as use of the drones to kill certain individuals of that particular country without the consent of that country. In Africa, the US is leading an aggressive campaign against terror suspects by building up drone bases in Ethiopia, Seychelles and around the Arabian Peninsula. Previously the US has already been known to uses armed drones against Al-Qaida suspects in Yemen and Somalia and also to monitor pirates off the coast of the country. In Sudan a similar project that uses satellite imagery to monitor human rights abuses is already being implemented in Darfur under the ‘Eyes on Darfur project’ however accounts of human rights violations still remain rampant in the region. Africa where most of the conflicts occur will be largely on the recipient side of this form of militaristic adventures and not only will it exacerbate inter and intra conflicts but it will also further alienate the African voice and interests in terms of security as well as human rights.
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