The EU and armed drones – epilogue
The countries of the European Union are moving into the era of weaponized drones. While the United Kingdom remains the only EU country to deploy armed drones, several other EU member states are seeking to acquire weapons-equipped unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or are debating their acquisition. Many European countries are also now involved in projects to develop weapons-capable drones themselves, though it is expected that European-made drones will not be ready for deployment for at least 10 years. Nevertheless, despite these developments and despite the extensive use of armed drones by the United States, the EU has not yet adopted any collective public position on some of the most hotly debated issues associated with the use of UAVs. Even individual member states have been slow to expound clear positions on the legal parameters for drone strikes. From one perspective, it might be thought odd that the development of a new weapons platform should give rise to demands for a defined European position. Admittedly, the acquisition of armed UAVs raises some questions for military forces that are different from those associated with other weapons systems: their combination of targeting precision, ability to remain over the battlespace for an extended period and elimination of any physical risk to the forces operating them are qualitatively different from other available military technologies and change the nature of the military engagement with the enemy. However the most striking feature of the global debate about drones has been the degree to which it has come to revolve around the way the United States has used UAVs to target suspected terrorists outside of battlefield conditions as part of its global campaign against al-Qaeda and associated groups. Calls for the EU to adopt a position on drones can most often be reduced to a request for clarification of the European view on the legality and morality of targeted killing conducted against individuals who do not pose an immediate threat to the forces attacking them. US practice in this area has gone beyond the boundaries that most western countries previously regarded as defining the limits of legitimate use of force. There are several reasons why it would be desirable for the EU to adopt a clearer line on this question. Bruno Oliveira Martins and Benedikt Backhaus (2015) highlight what is perhaps the most important one: given Europe’s long-standing role in helping define international norms, it would be regrettable for the EU not to participate in establishing the correct standards for a practice that could, under the legal regime asserted by the United States, cause significant damage to the international rule of law. As Elisabeth Schweiger (2015) argues, European silence should not necessarily be read as consent, but the
The risks of remaining silent: international law formation and the EU silence on drone killings
Despite fierce public critique, governments of EU member states have not objected to the ongoing practice of armed drone attacks. Whatever the reasons for this silence may be, in international law such non-reaction is not a mere absence. The silence of governments functions in particular ways and has become part of the current interpretative struggle about changing international principles regarding the right to self-defence and “targeted killing”. While some experts count this silence as tacit consent to “targeted killing” practices others dispute its legal value. This article builds on the work of linguistics to explore the functioning of silence in the diplomatic language games. The dominant reading of government silence is acquiescence in international law. Proposing alternative readings of government silence, this article shows how any interpretation of silence is necessarily a political act which channels the debate over whether and how international law is changing. I reflect silence not against but through its inherent ambiguity, thus revealing some obvious and some less obvious dangers of the EU policy of silence.
The crystal structure of stilpnomelane. Part II. The full cell
Summary The structural formula of stilpnomelane averaged from 37 representative literature analyses and based on the determined structure is (Ca,Na,K)4(Ti0·1Al2·3Fe35·5Mn0·8Mg9·3)[Si63Al9](O,OH)216·nH2O. Ferrostilpnomelanes have up to 12 R 3+ cations in the octahedral sheet, ferristilpnomelanes commonly have between 24 and 30 R 3+ cations, rarely up to 37. The two groups can be distinguished by accurate X-ray powder diffraction, ferrostilpnomelanes having d 001 less and a greater than have ferristilpnomelanes. The unit cell is triclinic, a = b∼21·8 Å, γ = 120°, d 001∼12·2 Å, P . Hexagonal groups or ‘islands’ of 24 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra co-ordinate to the octahedral sheet, the centres of the ‘islands’ are displaced by 5a/12, 8b/12 on either side of the octahedral sheet as a result of warping of this sheet to permit articulation with the smaller tetrahedral sheet. The 24-tetrahedra ‘islands’ are linked laterally by 6-member rings of inverted tetrahedra, which in turn link at their apices to like rings connecting the next sheet of ‘islands’. Thus a single tetrahedral layer is 4 tetrahedra thick and has symmetry 6/m. The 6-member rings of tetrahedra act as hinges permitting up to 0·5 Å extension or contraction of the tetrahedral sheet to accommodate variations in the octahedral sheet dimensions with varying R 2+/R 3+ ratio.