From Opinio Juris this important discussion of the Obama administration unabashed adoption of extraterritorial killing of U.S. citizens
"Are President Obama’s Assassinations of U.S. Citizens Constitutional?
by Julian Ku
The NY Times Opinionator has a nice roundup of lefty-blog reaction to the Obama Administration’s claim of the legal authority to kill and assassinate U.S. citizens abroad (and its admission to having already done so). Most lefty-blogs seem unconcerned about this policy, with the notable exception of Glenn Greenawald. From a legal perspective, the relative lack of outrage among the lefty-blogs/Obama supporters really does open the door to charges of hypocrisy. (One searches in vain on Balkinization for the outrage, for instance). Or have they joined the “Dark Side” where such bloggers famously accused Dick Cheney and John Yoo of residing? Here’s why these assassinations/killings pose such a real legal problem, especially under their previously stated views of how U.S. law should work.
It is an article of faith of many critics of the Bush policies that the detention of U.S. citizens as enemy combatants is almost always illegal, that the U.S. is bound by constitutional requirements even when acting abroad in a war zone, and especially when it is acting against U.S. citizens. But if one believes all of these things, then one cannot possibly believe that deliberately assassinating U.S. citizens is constitutional. As I’ve said before, if the U.S. cannot designate a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant without a hearing (and this is now a requirement of U.S. law), then I can’t quite see how the U.S. can at the same time deliberately assassinate that same U.S. citizen without a hearing. Am I missing something?
As some of the commenters have pointed out, the nationality of the victim is not that important from the perspective of international law. Under international law, the main question is whether there is legal authority to kill or assassinate anyone, much less one’s own nationals. But even under international law, as readers of Ken Anderson’s posts here and at Volokh know, it is still not all that clear. Indeed, there seems a more than plausible argument that certain kinds of assassinations, as currently executed by the Predator drones, could indeed constitute a violation of the law of war."
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