The Use of Unarmed Drones in UN Peacekeeping Operations: Issues of Attribution

The use of drones is typically associated with targeting strikes. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the debate on the opportunity for the United Nations to make use of this technology is still dominated by concerns on the “killer drones”. This Chapter emphasizes, instead, the magnitude and the crucial importance of the use of unarmed drones by the United Nations in missions conducted under their aegis. In peacekeeping operations in particular, unarmed drones are essential for fulfilling the UN mandate, as they can perform several non-lethal functions (i.e. monitoring, information gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance). However, drones—although unarmed and employed for peaceful purposes—pose a number of legal issues, particularly from the perspective of the protection of human rights and the liability of their operators. An often overlooked question relates to the (mis)use of drones by private actors who have been contracted by the United Nations to remotely operate the vehicles from ground stations and to collect, store and analyse the data thus captured. This issue will be tackled from the perspective of the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations with the aim to assess whether private actors operating the drones can be considered as “agents” of the United Nations, thereby directly imputing their potential wrongdoings to the Organization for whom they have been contracted.