The lawyer who is leading an inquiry for the United Nations on the use of drones hailed President Barack Obama’s major speech on counterterrorism as “a significant step towards increased transparency,” the BBC reported.
Ben Emmerson, a UN human rights special rapporteur whose drone inquiry began in January, said in a statement that Obama’s speech at National Defense University was unprecedented.
“It sets out more clearly and more authoritatively than ever before the administration’s legal justifications for targeted killing, and the constraints that it operates under,” Emmerson said, as quoted by the BBC.
