Drones, Morality and International Law

DAVID LUBAN, Georgetown University Law Center. The US use of weaponized drones in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia raises profound questions of morality and law. Are drone killings legitimate acts of self-defense, or extrajudicial murders? Are drones nothing more than a useful military technology, or do they transform the very nature of war? This talk will explore these issues from the standpoint of just war theory and international law. David Luban is University Professor in Law and Philosophy at Georgetown University Law Center. A frequent speaker in the United States, he has lectured in fifteen other countries. He has been a visiting professor at the Fordham, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale law schools, and most recently served as academic co-director of the Center for Transnational Legal Studies in London. He has written widely on just war theory, international criminal law, legal and military ethics, the U.S. torture debate, and legal philosophy. Luban's most recent books are Torture, Power, and Law (Cambridge 2013) and Legal Ethics and Human Dignity (Cambridge 2007), as well as textbooks on international criminal law and legal ethics.