Are Nuclear Scientists Legitimate Targets?

I had planned that these Shalzed questions be about a wide variety of human rights, but now for many of us it’s difficult to focus on anything other than the war between Israel and Iran. So this week’s question relates to that. May this end swiftly and lead to lasting security and peace.

Shlomo

It has been widely reported that in the very first phase of Israel’s surprise attack, it targeted key Iranian scientists. Israel used drones that tracked and then attacked them in the middle of the night in their homes. Let’s acknowledge at the outset that details about exactly who was targeted and how it was done remain unclear, and additional, future information may shed a different light on what happened.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL), also known as the Laws of Armed Combat, makes a clear distinction between soldiers and civilians. Soldiers, defined as members of a belligerent country’s armed forces, are subject to attack. Civilians, meaning any citizen who is not a member of the armed forces and who is also not directly participating in hostilities, may not.

So what is the status of a nuclear scientist? The scientists targeted in Iran do not seem to have been members of the armed forces. And even weapons-related research or aiding in the technical design of weapons, which takes place largely in peacetime, does not, at least at first blush, seem to be direct participation in hostilities. So an initial conclusion would be that they are civilians.

But what if the scientist possesses unique knowledge vital to the war effort? Could that remove their civilian status? This has been debated extensively by the Red Cross (which provides abundant guidance on IHL). Consider this excerpt from one of their meeting reports in 2006:

Several experts insisted that there has been a consensus since the Second World War that neither armament industry employees, nor nuclear weapons experts, were considered to be directly participating in hostilities regardless of their value to the war effort. . . One of the experts, while agreeing with the principle that a civilian weapons expert should not lose protection against direct attack, nevertheless doubted whether this assessment could be maintained in extreme situations where the expertise of a particular civilian was of very exceptional and decisive value for the outcome of an armed conflict. For example, in the case of nuclear weapons experts during the Second World War, the enormous importance of the individual contribution to the war effort clearly exceeded the ordinary. . . (p. 49).

Even according to the view that scientists with knowledge of ‘exceptional and decisive value’ might be subject to attack, it seems dubious (at least to me) whether that should apply here. In World War II, nuclear weapons were just being invented, and the scientists leading the research efforts were critical. But by now the science behind the atomic bomb is well known, with universities around the world producing graduates with advanced degrees in nuclear physics. It seems unlikely that the targeted scientists possessed critical knowledge that Iran can’t access from other sources.

A second question is, even if one agreed that attacking these scientists was okay, was sending explosive laden drones to their homes in the middle of the night an acceptable way to go about it? No matter how well targeted these drones might be, the potential for killing or injuring other family members, let alone neighbors and their property, would be enormous.

Of course, Israel might say that it did consider the knowledge these individuals possessed to be vital for Iran’s nuclear efforts. Even if Iran can obtain that same knowledge elsewhere, doing so will take time and cause additional delay. Setting the nuclear program back seems to be the entire goal of Israel’s operation. And IHL does allow for harming innocent civilian bystanders, if that damage is outweighed by the military benefit of the attack. Israel could try to make that claim here.

I also speculate there is another answer at least some members of the Israeli government would give, although this is only my sense and I haven’t actually heard them say it. This would be that IHL is simply too strict. The restrictions humanitarian law imposes on Israel as it goes about trying to eliminate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure don’t adequately take into account the danger of annihilation posed by these weapons and the immense military and political obstacles Israel faces in carrying out these strikes.

IHL is an ever-evolving product of international negotiation, not a holy text revealed by God. So there is nothing wrong with criticizing or questioning the wisdom of humanitarian law. But we also must acknowledge that claiming IHL is too restrictive opens a Pandora’s box. Everyone, including Israel’s enemies, sees IHL as too restrictive when it gets in their way.

So I’m curious what you think. Are weapons designers or nuclear scientists subject to attack? Does fighting to dismantle a nuclear program that an enemy country has threatened to use justify loosening restrictions on targeting in a way that fighting for other causes does not? Please let me know in the comments.