Drones: uma nova ameaça ao direito internacional humanitário?

Abstract

The matter of international security has been more and more discussed on the international’s agenda. Since the post-cold war period the topics associated to security are interesting not only for international organisms, but mainly for the States. As the world evolves in a steadfast speed, technological innovations with destructive capacity that are every day more lethal emerge as a new form of threat within the international system. That is the case of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems (UAVs), popularly known as drones. They introduce a new technology that can be used in many areas, including military purview. Unsuccessful attacks with drones harm innocent civilians and entail the major dilemma related to their use. The International Humanitarian Law is a group of normatives responsible for the regulation of conflicts that restrict the actions in a way to assure those that are not involved in the hostilities. This academic work’s purpose is to analyse if the use of drones in conflicts provides any risk or threat and if it has infringed the IHL, also evaluating if only these normatives are enough to guarantee what the IHL pleads: the security and the welfare of the citizens who are not associated with the conflicts. To achieve this purpose, the aspects of the international rights, focusing on the international humanitarian laws were presented, the definition of drone and its historical evolution and how the international scenario deals the use of drone through a study case.