British military personnel could be prosecuted for killing civilians in drone strikes and risk becoming complicit in alleged war crimes committed by the US, an inquiry has found.
A two-year probe by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones revealed that the number of operations facilitated by the UK in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia has been growing without any public scrutiny.
As well as launching its own strikes, the Ministry of Defence is assisting operations by the US and other allies that could violate both national and international law, it said.
[...]
Because the use of force outside conflicts Britain is directly involved with is not protected by combatant immunity, British servicemen and women can be prosecuted for murder.
As can the Ministers who approve such strikes. And they should be. Because what the UK has is a state policy of murdering its political opponents (some of whom are UK citizens) outside of armed conflict. The only difference between them and Putin's polonium and novichok poisonings is that they do it in Syria rather than Salisbury, and they use even more indiscriminate methods.
The inquiry also found that because the US drone program "appears to be violating international law", and that assisting it was therefore illegal and similarly exposed UK military and intelligence personnel to prosecution for US war crimes. Unlike the US, the UK is a party to the International Criminal Court, so it has an obligation to prosecute these criminals - and the threat that the international community will do it if they won't. Which ought to incentivise the UK government to cease such cooperation.
It also ought to focus the minds of New Zealand's spies - because in 2014 the Prime Minister admitted that their data may have been used for drone murders. Which could put them on the legal hook for murder and war crimes, just as the UK is. Once the Inspector-General of Intelligence and security has finished their report on SIS and GCSB engagement with the CIA (and its torture and rendition program), maybe they could look into this?