Laws of war should grant equal right to fight, not equal arms

Evidence

What he suggests here is not so much a right to equal combat, which would involve insisting on a struggle with equal weapons, but rather an equal right to fight. The fact that the law should not, by the norms that it imposes, make it “impossible from the start for one side to hope for victory” implies, not turning the war into a tournament—with pistol against pistol or sword against sword but, on the contrary, taking into consideration the disparity of the forces confronting each other and taking care not to increase it by imposing short-sighted laws that would confer to one side greater advantages while depriving the other side of even the possibility of fighting. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1038 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Chaumont proposes a guiding principle to remedy such adverse effects. He says, “A humanitarian law, to be objective and credible, must leave to both sides equal chances in combat: if a legal norm is incompatible with this principle and makes it impossible for one side to hope for victory, the best thing is to renounce the establishment of such a law” (ibid.). — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1037 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But the offensive is also and perhaps above all pushing into the field of legal theory. “Warfare without risk,” in which the drone is probably the most effective instrument, critically undermines the meta-legal principles that underpin the right to kill in war. Against a background of fundamental destabilization such as this, formulas for redefining a sovereign power over life and death are being introduced. The aim is to accommodate the right to “targeted assassination” even if, in the process, the rights typically associated with being in armed conflict go up in smoke. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 128 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modern jus in bello rests on combatants’ equal right to kill, not on punishment; Humanitarian law must grant asymmetrical parties equal chances to fight.; Law should equalize the right to fight, not the weapons themselves. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1038 (+4 more)

Related

• Law should equalize the right to fight, not the weapons themselves. (similarity 0.96)
• Humanitarian law must leave both sides equal chances to fight. (similarity 0.92)
• Humanitarian law must grant asymmetrical parties equal chances to fight. (similarity 0.91)
• Modern jus in bello rests on combatants’ equal right to kill, not on punishment (similarity 0.90)
• Outlawed combatants lose all incentive to obey war’s rules (similarity 0.90)
• Legal immunity for wartime killing presupposes that the right to kill is mutual. (similarity 0.86)
• Law that excludes adversaries from fighting fails to restrain their violence (similarity 0.85)
• Risk-free warfare erodes the legal principles justifying the right to kill in war. (similarity 0.84)
• Just-cause theorists grant only the just warrior the right to kill (similarity 0.83)
• Unilateral drone killing makes the legal right to kill merely formal. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone warfare leaves the mutual right to kill formally intact but substantively empty. (similarity 0.82)
• Accepted zero-risk killing would collapse just war theory (similarity 0.81)
• The drone made warfare absolutely unilateral, killing without risk of being killed (similarity 0.80)
• Moral limits on weapons apply only where adversaries are equals (similarity 0.80)
• Drone warfare creates a new configuration that is neither war nor peace (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Law should equalize the right to fight, not the weapons themselves. #exemplifies (0.95) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1038
• Humanitarian law must leave both sides equal chances to fight. #corroborates (0.85) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1037
• Law that excludes adversaries from fighting fails to restrain their violence #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1040
• Risk-free warfare erodes the legal principles justifying the right to kill in war. #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 128