Assassination used to be the low art of violent politics: a personal, chaotic tool for removing rivals and changing the balance of power in narrow theatres. In the modern world—where states claim to speak for entire peoples, sign treaties, and pledge to uphold minimum standards of decency—the calculated murder of a political or military figure by another state is not a strategic nuance: it is a decision that unravels law, order, and moral authority at the core. What began as covert plots and deniable black operations has metastasised into a creeping doctrine that some governments now treat as legitimate statecraft. This must stop. Not because killing is convenient to prohibit, but because the alternative is darker: a world where murder is a recognised diplomatic instrument and civilians are its inevitable collateral in the first, second, and third orders of consequence.
1. Law, Norms, and the Illusion of “Grey Zones”
International law is blunt where it needs to be: the UN Charter forbids the use of force against another state except in self-defence or with the Security Council’s authorisation. There isn’t a “we’ll kill only when it’s convenient” clause. In practice, powerful states have stretched legal doctrines—self-defense, “armed conflict” against non-state actors, imminent threat—to justify targeted killings. But legal sophistry is not the same as legitimacy. The moment one state publicly rationalises the extrajudicial killing of another state’s senior official, the precautionary taboo that kept interstate killings rare fractures into shards. The result is not clarity but a widening “grey” that invites abuse and self-serving redefinitions of law.
2. The Dangerous Precedent of Overt High-Level Strikes
The transition from covert to overt matters. When intelligence agencies operate in the shadows, wrongdoings can be hidden, denied, or at least contained. When a state openly kills a foreign official—publicly claiming self-defence, systemic threat, or “necessary” action—it sets an explicit precedent. Others will copy, escalate, or respond asymmetrically. That is not theory; it is history and logic. Once leadership becomes a legitimate battlefield target in one theatre, the logic spreads: political, diplomatic, and military leaders become fair game. The border between soldiers and statesmen blurs, reducing the protections that once anchored diplomacy.
3. Slippery Slope: From “High-Value Target” to Civilian Purge
State assassination doctrine rarely stays pure. The first targets picture themselves as lawful military actors; the next targets are political opponents, journalists, dissidents, exiles, even donors and technocrats who are labelled “enablers.” When governments establish lists—databases of “enemies” or “collaborators”—and circulate personal details of those deemed hostile, they create shortcuts for non-state vigilantes, militias, or friendly services to commit violence with plausible deniability. A “blacklist” that publishes names, addresses, or travel data is not an abstract spreadsheet: it is a live map to people’s lives. When those lists get laundered into narrative frames that dehumanise, the next murder is no longer an aberration but a foreseeable consequence. Reports about such databases and their lethal real-world effects have been made by human-rights organisations for years.
4. Terrorist State vs. State Terrorism — The Real Distinction
Labeling is not mere semantics. A terrorist organisation is defined by the deliberate targeting of civilians for political ends. When a state adopts similar methods—indiscriminate attacks on non-combatants, deliberate strikes that ignore proportionality, the use of extrajudicial killing as policy—it crosses from counter-terrorism into state-sponsored terror. Whether the perpetrators dress their acts in the language of “self-defense” or “pre-emptive necessity” does not change the moral calculus. Democracies that tolerate or tacitly approve targeted murders abroad hollow out their own legitimacy: they become what they claim to oppose. Legalisms will be deployed to justify every excess; that is why we need concrete, enforceable prohibitions, not just speeches and press releases.
5. Accountability Must Be Real — Not Performative
Too often, international justice is theatrical. Sanctions, condemnations, selective prosecutions—these are weak medicines for a disease of state violence. If a state deliberately orders extrajudicial killings of foreign officials or civilians absent lawful necessity, there should be real accountability: impartial investigations, transparent evidence-sharing, and, where applicable, prosecutions in competent international fora. Executive orders that purport to ban “assassination” (and do exist in some national lawbooks) are hollow if they can be reinterpreted away at will. Criminalisation must be backed by enforcement mechanisms that do not bend to political convenience.
6. Technology Lowers Costs, Raises Risks
Drones, long-range precision weapons, autonomous systems, and data leaks make assassination cheaper and more precise. That isn’t good news; it multiplies temptations. The capacity to strike remotely is not a moral argument for doing so—it is a reason to lock the policy down tighter. The easier it is to kill from afar, the more urgent it becomes to erect legal and normative bulwarks that are resilient against instant political expediency.
7. The Moral Argument: Human Life Over Policy Convenience
The habit of picking off enemies removes the moral brakes that separate governance from banditry. Leaders who authorise extrajudicial killings delegitimise themselves and their institutions. If murder becomes an ordinary instrument of statecraft, dissent becomes deadly; exile is no refuge; journalism becomes a suicide risk. The societies that accept such practices for “security” will find that security curdles into fear and the rule of law evaporates.
8. A Final, Practical Prescription
1. Absolute Criminalisation: Draft an international protocol (bolted onto existing human-rights and humanitarian law frameworks) that makes deliberate extrajudicial killing of political or military leaders outside a clearly defined state of armed conflict a prosecutable international crime.
2. Independent Investigation Mechanism: Create a small, independent investigative body with subpoena powers (internationally agreed, properly insulated), whose findings can trigger ICC or hybrid proceedings.
3. Ban Public “Hit” Databases: Require states to prohibit the publication of personal data used to incite violence; remove illicit “blacklists” from official and semi-official circulation and prosecute willful doxxing that leads to harm.
4. Clarify Self-Defence Thresholds: Articulate and limit the “imminent threat” standard so it cannot be stretched into perpetual justification for pre-emptive murders.
5. Enforce Transparency: Where a state claims an assassination was lawful, require it to release a redacted factual record to the investigating body — not performative statements but verifiable evidence.
9. On the Question of “Lists”
Across theatres of conflict there have been sites and registries that publish names of people deemed hostile. Some are framed as law-enforcement tools; others as patriotic inventories. But the practical effect of publishing sensitive personal data in wartime is clear: it exposes people to arrest, kidnapping, and murder—whether by actors acting for the state or by opportunists who seize the cue. Even when framed as necessary for national security, these “blacklists” often operate beyond effective oversight and have resulted in real harm. The international community’s response should be to treat any such practice with deep suspicion and strong legal constraints.
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Closing: No Exceptions That Swallow the Rule
There is no “small” normalisation of assassination. Each allowance is a wedge. The right response to foreign evil is not to adopt its methods, but to strengthen our institutions so they render such methods unnecessary: precise law, strict accountability, and the humane practice of power. If states want secure borders and stable diplomacy, the path is not to turn every grievance into an execution order. It is to make murder an unfashionable and punishable exception — not a policy tool. Criminalise, investigate, prosecute. Then watch the world become slightly less likely to kill its way to solutions.
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Expanded sections (copy these into your essay where you want the deeper analysis)
A. Legal Framework — What the Law Actually Says (and why sophistry won’t clean this up)
Modern international law draws a clear line: the use of force by one state against another is prohibited except in self-defence (Article 51, UN Charter) or when the Security Council authorises force. Outside a recognized armed conflict, extrajudicial killing of officials is treated as an unlawful use of force and can amount to an unlawful execution under human-rights law. Attempts to justify extraterritorial strikes by stretching “imminent threat” or inventing continuing-armed-conflict narratives weaken—not clarify—the rule of law; they convert legal standards into rhetorical shields for political violence. [^1][^2].
B. Historical Precedents — Why “We Did It in War” Doesn’t Make It OK
There are historical examples that are frequently invoked to justify modern strikes, but the context matters. Allied strikes against enemy military leaders in declared wartime (e.g., the 1943 shoot-down of Admiral Yamamoto) occurred during conventional wars where belligerency and battlefield targeting rules applied; they are not direct analogues to an extra-territorial peacetime strike on a state official. Conflating wartime battlefield killings with peacetime extrajudicial strikes creates a false continuity that legal advisers use to sanitise politically risky actions. [^3].
C. Norm Erosion and Technology — Drones, Denial, and the Cheapening of Murder
Remote weapons, drones, and precise intelligence lower the political cost of killing. That technological ease tempts states to substitute assassination for diplomacy or multilateral enforcement. Once one prominent actor publicly normalises such strikes, copying and escalation follow quickly: the legal “grey zone” becomes a permissive ecosystem for reprisals, proxy work, and selective law-bending. This is not hypothetical — contemporary legal critiques of public, high-level strikes show how the “imminent threat” standard has been read expansively to justify what would otherwise be unlawful acts. [^1][^4].
D. Blacklists, Doxxing, and the Real-World Targeting Pipeline
Public or semi-official registries that publish personal data of “enemies,” collaborators, or traitors create a practical kill-chain. They turn ideological enemies into street-level targets: from public naming to violent action is a short step when groups, militias, or opportunists act on leaked data or sanctioned lists. Human-rights organisations have repeatedly warned that such databases—regardless of their name or stated purpose—expose individuals to harassment, detention, and death. Treating doxxing as bureaucratic record-keeping when it results in harm is a fig leaf for state-sponsored violence. [^5][^6].
E. The Accountability Gap — Why “Sanctions and Statements” Aren’t Enough
Condemnations and targeted sanctions without independent, evidence-based investigation are performative. If extrajudicial killings are to be deterred, states must accept external scrutiny: a standing, impartial investigative mechanism with the authority to gather evidence and refer cases to competent international tribunals (ICC or ad-hoc/hybrid courts) is essential. National excuses — classified briefings, invocation of secret intelligence, or unilateral “self-defense” claims — must not be the last word. [^7].
F. Practical Policy Tools (detailed, enforceable)
1. International Protocol — An explicit protocol criminalising deliberate extrajudicial killing of foreign state officials outside a genuinely declared or objectively demonstrable armed conflict.
2. Independent Investigatory Body — Small, treaty-based panel with subpoena powers, forensic capability, and a clear referral pathway (ICC / hybrid courts).
3. Blacklist/Doxxing Ban — International rule requiring states to prohibit public or semi-public lists that publish identifying data of alleged “enemies” where doing so creates a foreseeable risk of harm.
4. Transparency Requirements — Where a state admits to a strike, require a redacted factual report to the investigatory body within a fixed timeframe; absent such a report, treat the act as presumptively unlawful.
5. Technology Controls — Export controls and legal obligations on the use of remote strike systems with mandatory human oversight and reporting standards.
Each of these is implementable, measurable, and harder to spin into rhetoric. They move the response from moral sermon to enforceable structure. (See footnotes for case studies and legal sources.) [^1][^7].
[^1]: On the U.S. legal and UN reporting surrounding the Soleimani strike and the problems with the “imminent threat” claim, see Adil Haque, “U.S. Legal Defense of the Soleimani Strike at the United Nations: A Critical Assessment,” Just Security, Jan 10, 2020.
[^2]: General treatment of targeted killing and the laws of war is discussed in scholarly analyses arguing the Soleimani strike fails the imminence and proportionality tests; see recent law-review treatment summarising those arguments.
[^3]: For the historic wartime precedent and contextual background on Yamamoto’s shoot-down (Operation Vengeance, 1943), see accounts in WWII histories and museum summaries (National WWII Museum). This case is widely cited but should be distinguished from peacetime extrajudicial strikes.
[^4]: For recent critical legal analysis of Israel’s targeted-killing doctrine and discussion of extraterritorial strikes under self-defense, consult ICRC/academic case studies and contemporary legal commentary on evolving practice. (ICRC case study: “Israel, The Targeted Killings Case.”)
[^5]: On the Myrotvorets/“Peacemaker” style databases and the debate around whether they function as dangerous doxxing/hit-lists, see the Myrotvorets encyclopedia entry and critical reporting by fact-check and human-rights commentators. (Myrotvorets overview: Wikipedia; criticism and fact-checking: FactCheck.bg/others.)
[^6]: Human-rights groups have repeatedly warned that publication of personal data in conflict contexts creates a predictable risk of harm; see NGO reporting on doxxing and lists in conflict theatres (examples in the public record).
[^7]: On the domestic U.S. prohibition history and executive orders banning “assassination” (Church Committee, EO 11905, EO 12036, EO 12333) and the need for stronger enforcement mechanisms, see Congressional Research Service summaries and the historical EO texts.
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