La categoria di unlawful enemy combatant e la pratica del targeted killing: verso una guerra individualizzata?

The unlawful enemy combatant and targeted killing: towards the individualization of war?

Abstract

Targeted killing, one of the most recurrent practices in the global war terror, has not only been a function of the development of up-to-date military technologies as autonomous weapons and drones. Rather, it has been also enabled by specific intellectual categories making it a grounded practice. The unlawful enemy combatant is the intellectual category that has allowed to think and practice targeted killing in the global war on terror. This article looks at how this category has perfectly combined with targeted killing, turning it into a legitimate and institutionalized practice where war revolves all around the target, namely the single individual. Eventually, the article claims that both the unlawful enemy combatant and targeted killing are two co-constitutive elements and are part of the large scope of turning war into an individualized enterprise, as they allow to designate first and eliminate then the enemy as a single individual.

Keywords: Unlawful enemy combatant; War at a distance; Targeted killing; Unmanned armed drones; Individualization of war.