From Law, Culture & the Humanities
On Sunday night, May 1, 2011, United States President Barack Obama addressed America and the world. He told them, the “United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.” This was an act that many had hoped to hear confirmed for a long time to feel justice for the killing of thousands of innocent people that as the terrorist leader he was responsible for. While the vast majority were relieved to hear the news of Bin Laden’s assassination there were a few Human Rights lawyers or supporters who raised concerns as they felt unlike the masses that although the United States was legally justified in violating Pakistan’s sovereignty to apprehend an indicted and active international criminal, it was not legally justified in assassinating him. They felt the just thing to do was to arrest him and make him go through a trial for his offences and face punishment this way. This article argues that assassinations, which under certain conditions are justified under international law, can also be just, but only when they are accompanied by the risk of a jury trial, a trial – even a trial after the fact of the assassination – this offers the potential to reconcile assassination and justice
