{"id":15133,"date":"2021-08-31T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T06:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/?p=15133"},"modified":"2021-08-31T12:34:11","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T10:34:11","slug":"show-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/show-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Show Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cColonel Powell, Ma\u2019am, I am the pilot in command responsible for releasing the weapon. I have the right to ask for the CDE to be run again. I will not release my weapon until that happens.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With these words, Second Lieutenant Steve Watts, a drone pilot, refused to release his weapons on a terrorists\u2019 compound in Nairobi, Kenya, demanding that the \u2018CDE\u2019 \u2013 the collateral damage estimate algorithm \u2013 will be recalculated, this time taking into account the new visuals produced by the drone\u2019s sensors, which captured a nine-year-old girl near the targeted compound.<\/p>\n

Steve is not a real drone pilot. He is a fictional character created by screenwriter Guy Hibbert in his screenplay<\/a> for the British action-thriller, \u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019.\u00a0 Steve\u2019s insistence to hold fire until the CDE is recalculated based on the new drone visuals is nonetheless significant. Through his actions and expressions, Steve establishes mundane data practices as a system of knowledge production through which International Humanitarian Law (IHL) actors exercise jurisdiction over people and processes, time and space. Viewed through these lenses, IHL is not only a set of legal norms, rules, and principles designed to guide behaviour during armed conflicts. It is also a set of data practices that classify individuals into legal categories such as \u2018combatant\u2019 and \u2018civilian\u2019, establish levels of dangerousness, and determine \u2013 using predictive technologies \u2013 factual conditions on the ground (including how many bystanders will be killed in an attack).<\/p>\n

Representations of IHL\u2019s Data Practices and its Evolving Proto-Jurisdiction <\/strong><\/p>\n

This evolving aspect of IHL\u2019s jurisdiction \u2013 referred to by Fleur Johns, in another context, as proto-jurisdiction<\/a> \u2013 relates to the exercise of jurisdiction through data collection and construction by legally authorized agents, such as Steve, the drone pilot. Collecting and interpreting data captured through various visual and predictive technologies, Steve observed a young girl, determined her legal status, and insisted that her fate must be determined by a further calculation of a sophisticated collateral damage algorithm. By refusing to release his weapons until the CDE is recalculated, Steve turned to IHL\u2019s data practices as the embodiment of legal authority and justice. Steve\u2019s heroism was expressed through obeying the CDE algorithm, killing 9-year-old Alia, against his own moral and legal judgment. Data practices such as these are the main force advancing \u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019s plot and are presented as the pinnacle of modern IHL.<\/p>\n

\u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019 features many advanced technological capabilities, including drone imaging, facial recognition technologies, short-range surveillance cameras, and collateral damage algorithms, and showcases their centrality to the application of IHL. Despite the centrality of these technologies in the movie\u2019s plot, the various ways in which they extend IHL\u2019s jurisdiction and affect decision-makers are neither questioned nor critically explored. Instead, the technology is used as an Archimedean Point from which the just and true nature of IHL practices can be observed. The drone operators\u2019 interpretation of the visuals, or the predictions of the algorithms, are not questioned; and the methodologies producing these outputs remain invisible, even when it becomes clear that they entail at least some level of uncertainty and inaccuracy.<\/p>\n

The Conservative Trend in Just War Cinema and the Western Narrative of the Bureaucracy of Killing<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019 is far from being \u2018accurate\u2019 or \u2018objective\u2019 (see already here<\/a>) as claimed by IHL experts (see only here<\/a> and here<\/a>). Instead, it adopts and advances an ideological narrative, presenting existing IHL\u2019s data practices as a higher authority in IHL decision-making; and constructing compliance with \u2013 and submission to \u2013 these data practices as the highest form of modern military heroism. By doing so, it contributes to and participates in the growing conservative cinematic trend<\/a> in war movies, while masking this ideological stance as neutral and natural.<\/p>\n

Drawing on the works of TWAIL scholars (see here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>), it becomes visible that \u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019s representations of IHL\u2019s proto-jurisdiction reflect and reinforce a particular IHL narrative, which is consistent with Western countries\u2019 narrative about their existing bureaucracy of killing. For example, while Kenyan Special Forces are ready to launch a ground attack on the compound, Western decision-makers dismiss this option as inferior to their alternative \u2013 a technology-based airstrike. Though not glorifying war per se, \u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019 justifies Western countries\u2019 data practices and focuses on Western decision-makers and their perceived dilemmas. At the same time, the construction of these dilemmas is based on several unsubstantiated assumptions, including that existing IHL data practices are just, accurate, and protective. The construction of these dilemmas also marginalise African decision-makers\u2019 expertise and preferences, and evade necessary questions concerning IHL\u2019s legitimation of violence and domination of third world countries and peoples (presenting Nairobi as a \u2018friendly\u2019 city in need of protection, and allowing only Western decision-makers to \u2018speak IHL\u2019).<\/p>\n

Reshaping Core IHL Concepts through Data Practices<\/strong><\/p>\n

Similarly, \u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019 uses IHL\u2019s data practices to reshape the concept of protection: when Colonel Powell orders her targeteer, Sergeant Mushtaq Saddiq, to \u2018Do whatever you can to save this girl\u2019s life\u2019, she means that he should find a way to amend the algorithmic calculation so that in the parallel realm generated by IHL data practices, Alia\u2019s chances of survival will increase to a certain pre-determined threshold. After the CDE algorithm elevates Alia\u2019s chances of survival to 65 percent, Colonel Powell declared that \u2018We have now done everything in our power to give this girl a chance to survive\u2019. In Powell\u2019s eyes \u2013 reflecting Western countries\u2019 narrative \u2013 this modification of chances and prediction through data practices is a constitutive exercise: whatever fate befalls Alia \u2013 the technology has given her a \u2018chance\u2019 to survive. \u2018Everything in our power\u2019 is thus reduced to fine-tuning of the algorithmic prediction. Other \u2013 non-technology-based \u2013 courses of action, such as cancelling the operation, using ground forces (which in this case were ready and willing), attacking the target on its way to location, or consulting with local authorities, were eliminated.<\/p>\n

Additionally, by focusing on a deliberate manipulation of the technology-generated output by a \u2018rotten apple\u2019 \u2013 rather than an inherent element of IHL\u2019s data practices and the bureaucracy of killing \u2013 \u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019 constructs IHL\u2019s data practices as a pure system of knowledge production. The fact that the original prediction, which was presented as \u2018correct\u2019 and \u2018true\u2019, was also erroneous (an accurate assessment would have predicted Alia\u2019s death with 100 percent certainty), was not considered at all. Other limitations of IHL\u2019s data practices were similarly ignored. The final scenes of the movie demonstrate the temporality and rigidity of these data practices: once the first strike was launched \u2013 destroying the compound, killing all but one of the terrorists, and injuring Alia \u2013 the factual basis for the legal assessment changed. The terrorists\u2019 plans were frustrated and the risk to Alia\u2019s life increased (as it was now clear that she is in the range of fire, and cannot flee the scene as she lies injured on the ground). But the virtual legal reality remained static, unmoved, unquestioned, as Colonel Powell ordered a second strike on the compound; a strike that killed the remaining living terrorist, as well as Alia.<\/p>\n

\u2018Eye in the Sky\u2019 was released a few months after British and US forces attempted to target and kill an ISIS operative \u2013 Junaid Hussain<\/a> \u2013 in Northern Syria, killing, instead, three innocent bystanders and wounding five; and shortly after a US aircraft misidentified and bombed Doctors Without Borders\u2019 hospital<\/a> in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing forty-two people, mostly medical staff and patients. Viewed within this context, the image of IHL\u2019s data practices as a true representation of reality seems particularly problematic. An accurate and authentic representation of IHL\u2019s data practices would have revealed \u2013 and challenged \u2013 their imperfections and jurisdictional implications, their political and cultural predispositions, and their legitimation of violence and domination.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This post is part of a symposium on the topic of this year\u2019s AjV-DGIR conference on \u2018Jurisdiction \u2013 Who Speaks International Law?\u2019, to be held physically in Bonn and online via zoom. The contributions to the symposium are shorter versions of papers that will be presented during the conference. The full programme is available <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>. You can register as an engaged listener (online only) <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cColonel Powell, Ma\u2019am, I am the pilot in command responsible for releasing the weapon. I have the right to ask for the CDE to be run again. I will not release my weapon until that happens.\u201d With these words, Second Lieutenant Steve Watts, a drone pilot, refused to release his weapons on a terrorists\u2019 compound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6639],"tags":[],"authors":[5349],"article-categories":[3572],"doi":[],"class_list":["post-15133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","authors-shiri-krebs","article-categories-symposium"],"acf":{"subline":"IHL\u2019s Data Practices and the Bureaucracy of Killing"},"meta_box":{"doi":"10.17176\/20210831-112611-0"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15133"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15139,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15133\/revisions\/15139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15133"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=15133"},{"taxonomy":"article-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-categories?post=15133"},{"taxonomy":"doi","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doi?post=15133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}