2012 Apr 28 - 9:00am
2012 Apr 28 - 5:00pm
Join us in Washington, DC on April 28 and 29 for an “International Drone Summit: Killing and Spying by Remote Control” hosted by CODEPINK, Reprieve, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. US drone strikes have killed an estimated 3,000 people around the world, including hundreds of civilians, without any judicial process or meaningful oversight, and without any transparency or accountability. The summit’s dual objectives are to better inform the public about the reality and significance of the US government’s expanding use of both killer and surveillance drones, and to facilitate networks and strategies to resist this expansion.
The Saturday, April 28 program is open to the public and brings together human rights advocates, robotics technology experts, activists, lawyers, scholars and journalists, and shares the stories of people whose families and lives have been directly impacted by remote-controlled drone strikes. This is an all day event with multiple panels beginning at 9am at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC. See this site for updates on the program, and register here today!
Opening Speakers:
- Medea Benjamin (CODEPINK)
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange and the peace group CODEPINK, is author of the new book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control (OR Books, 2012).
- Clive Stafford Smith (Reprieve)
Clive Stafford Smith is the founder and Director of Reprieve. He has helped secure the release of 65 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay and in 2010 received the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Award.
- Shahzad Akbar (Foundation for Fundamental Rights)
Shahzad Akbar is the co-founder and Legal Director of Foundation for Fundamental Rights. He has been litigating on behalf of drone-strike victims from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
Panels
Legality and Transparency of Drones and Targeted Killings
Speakers:
- Hina Shamsi (ACLU)
Hina Shamsi Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project and her focus is on the intersection of national security and counter terrorism policies and international human rights and humanitarian law. She has also served as Senior Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions.
- Maria LaHood (CCR)
Maria LaHood is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She specializes in international human rights litigation, seeking to hold government officials and corporations accountable for torture, extrajudicial killings and war crimes abroad. Her cases have included Arar v. Ashcroft, against U.S. officials for sending Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria where he was tortured and detained for a year; and Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, to prevent the “targeted killing” of a U.S. citizen in violation of constitutional and international law.
- David Glazier (Loyola Law School-LA)
David Glazier is a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He served 21 years as a US Navy surface warfare officer. In that capacity, he commanded the USS George Philip, served as the Seventh Fleet staff officer responsible for the US Navy-Japan relationship, the Pacific Fleet officer responsible for the US Navy-PRC relationship, and participated in UN sanctions enforcement against Yugoslavia and Haiti.
Victims, Compensation and Accountability
Speakers:
- Sarah Holewinski (Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict)
Sarah Holewinski is the Executive Director of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC). She has traveled to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Lebanon and other places to lobby for smarter, more compassionate policies for war victims. She is a team member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
- Rafia Zakaria (DAWN)
Rafia Zakaria is a Pakistani-American lawyer and journalist. She co-founded the Muslim Women's Legal Fund, which provides legal representation to Muslim women facing domestic abuse in family and immigration law cases. She writes a weekly column for DAWN Pakistan's largest English newspaper and is author of the forthcoming book Silence in Karachi: An intimate History of Pakistan.
- Chris Woods (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
Chris Woods is a senior reporter at the Bureau where he leads a dedicated team examining the US covert war on terror in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Despite continuing CIA claims that it is not killing civilians in Pakistan, Chris's recent investigations have proved otherwise. Most recently, he exposed CIA attacks on rescuers and funeral-goers.
- Amna Buttar
Dr. Amna Buttar is a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab in Pakistan and a human rights activist.
Domestic Drones, Surveillance and Privacy Concerns
Speakers:
- Jay Stanley (ACLU)
Jay Stanley is Senior Policy Analyst with ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project and co-authored the recent ACLU report “Protecting Privacy from Aerial Surveillance: Recommendations for Government Use of Drone Aircraft.”
- Amie Stepanovich (Electronic Privacy Information Center)
Amie Stepanovich is legal counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Her work includes issues of national security, government surveillance, digital security, and open government.
- Tom Barry (Center for International Policy)
Tom Barry, senior analyst at the Center for International Policy, directs the institute’s TransBorder Project. He has authored numerous books about U.S. foreign policy and Latin America. His most recent book is Border Wars (MIT Press, 2011). Barry produces the Border Lines Blog. His investigative article on immigrant imprisonment in the Boston Review, “A Death in Texas,” was a National Magazine Award finalist in 2009.
- Trevor Timm (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Trevor Timm is an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He specializes in free speech issues and government transparency.
International Convention on Drone Use
Speakers:
- Noel Sharkey (ICRAC)
Noel Sharkey is a professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield and co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC).
- Peter Asaro (ICRAC)
Peter Asaro is an assistant professor at the New School in New York and co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC).
- Sarah Knuckey (ICRAC)
Sarah Knuckey is Director of the Project on Extrajudicial Executions at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law.
- Lucy Suchman (ICRAC)
Lucy Suchman is a professor of sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Social Studies at Lancaster University.
- Mark Gubrud (ICRAC)
Mark Gubrud is Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of North
Carolina. He proposed a ban on autonomous lethal robots as early as
1988. As a graduate student, he founded the University of Maryland
Peace Forum in Sept. 2001. He writes and speaks in support of arms
control for space weapons and military robots, and against the cult of
technology.
Ethical and Political Issues of Drone Use and Targeted Killings
Speakers:
- Sheila Carapico
Sheila Carapico is a contributing editor of Middle East Report and a professor of political science and international studies at the University of Richmond.
- Madiha Tahir
Madiha Tahir is an independent journalist reporting on conflict, culture and politics in Pakistan. Her work has appeared in several media outlets including Foreign Affairs, The Columbia Journalism Review, Wall Street Journal, BBC and PRI's The World, Global Post, The National, Caravan and Democracy Now! She is currently co-editing a forthcoming edited book Dispatches from Pakistan.
- Jimmy Johnson
Jimmy Johnson is the founder of Neged Neshek, a project documenting and analyzing Israeli militarism and the arms industry. He is a featured writer for Electronic Intifada and a former International Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
- Sadia Ali Aden
Dr. Sadia Aden is a human rights advocate and a freelance writer. Many of her articles on Somalia, Islam, and human rights have been published by media groups around the world (Huffington Post, Middle East On-Line, Islam On-line, Global Politician, Aljazeera Magazine, News Blaze and Scoop). She is also an active member of the Somali Diaspora community.
Drone Resisters
- Ann Wright
Ann Wright spent 26 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves. She was a diplomat in the State Department for 15 years, serving in the U.S. embassies of Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Grenada and Nicaragua. She resigned in 2003 in protest of the then-impending invasion of Iraq. In 2009 she co-authored Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
- Nick Mottern (KnowDrones)
Nick Mottern is Director of KnowDrones and an activist.
- Nancy Mancias (CODEPINK)
Nancy Mancias coordinates CODEPINK's War Criminals and Ground the Drones campaigns. She is a key organizer in the San Francisco anti-war community and supports war resisters in the United States and Canada.
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