Legal immunity for wartime killing presupposes that the right to kill is mutual.

Evidence

The right to kill with impunity in war thus seems to be based upon a tacit structural premise: if one has the right to kill without crime, it is because that right is granted mutually. If I agree to confer upon another the right to kill me or my people with impunity, that is because I count on benefiting from the same exemption if I myself kill. The decriminalization of warrior homicide presupposes a structure of reciprocity. The killing is allowed only because it is a matter of killing each other. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 522

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Right to kill depends on readiness to expose own soldiers; War’s immunity from murder prosecutions rests on mutual reciprocity; Risk-free warfare erodes the legal principles justifying the right to kill in war. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 128 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Unilateral drone killing makes the legal right to kill merely formal. #exemplifies (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 525
• Risk-free warfare erodes the legal principles justifying the right to kill in war. #expands (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 128
• Humanitarian law must leave both sides equal chances to fight. #expands (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1037
• Law should equalize the right to fight, not the weapons themselves. #expands (0.65) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1038
• Laws of war should grant equal right to fight, not equal arms #expands (0.65)