UK Air Strike in Syria (with France and Australia Not Far Behind)
Publisher
Lawfare
Date
2015-9-9
Bobby posted on Monday about the UK decision to target and kill a UK national in Syria who was part of ISIS. (Another UK national also died in the strike.) Bobby’s post discusses the similarities between the UK legal theory, as it’s been presented publicly, and the legal theory the U.S. Government asserted in its strike on Anwar al-Awlaki. As Bobby notes, the United Kingdom’s theory is that it was acting in national self-defense against an imminent or continuing threat to the United Kingdom (which it cast as a “direct threat” in which the UK target was “seeking to orchestrate specific and barbaric attacks against the West”). But there is an aspect of the UK legal theory that merits emphasis.
Citation
Ashley S. Deeks, UK Air Strike in Syria (with France and Australia Not Far Behind), Lawfare (September 9, 2015).