Extrajudicial Killing
➡is the killing of a person by governmental authorities without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process.
Targeting specific people for death, which in authoritarian regimes often involves political, trade union, dissident, religious and social figures.
The term is typically used in situations that imply the human rights of the victims have been violated; deaths caused by legitimate warfighting or police actions are generally not included, even though military and police forces are often used for killings seen by critics as illegitimate.
The label "extrajudicial killing" has also been applied to organized, lethal enforcement of extralegal social norms by non-government actors, including lynchings and honor killings.
Types of Extrajudicial killing
- Death flights
- Death squad
- Enforced disappearance
- Lynching
- Social cleansing
- Summary execution
- Targeted killing
United Nations
➡Morris Tidball-Binz was appointed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions on 1 April 2021 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
International law
➡International law prohibits the arbitrary deprivation of life, which includes extrajudicial killing.
In the context of an armed conflict and under certain circumstances, extrajudicial executions can be considered a war crime. They may also amount to genocide or crime against humanity in specific contexts and if they are part of a collective practice.
The right to life is protected by several international treaties, in particular:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)
- The Geneva Conventions (1949)
- The European Convention on Human Rights (1950)
- The American Convention on Human Rights (1969)
- The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981)