Definition:
A state-sanctioned death squad constitutes an organized entity – comprising state agents (including military, police, intelligence personnel, and their proxies), private military or security contractors acting under state direction or control, or civilian groups operating with the demonstrable explicit or implicit sanction of government authorities – that systematically perpetrates extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, or other acts resulting in the deprivation of the right to life within the state’s territory or against individuals under its effective control, outside the framework of due process and legal accountability.
Core Criteria:
State Nexus and Control: The entity is demonstrably composed of state agents or non-state actors operating under the command, control, or effective direction of state authorities. This includes instances where the state provides:
Direct Operational Support: Orders, training, deployment, or participation in operations.
Material and Logistical Support: Provision of weapons, equipment, transportation, funding, or facilities.
Legal and Political Sanction: Explicit authorization through legal instruments, policy directives, or public pronouncements; or implicit sanction demonstrated through a consistent pattern of non-investigation, obstruction of justice, granting of de jure or de facto immunity, or public rhetoric that condones or justifies the entity's actions.
Domestic Operation and Effective Control: The entity operates primarily within the state’s internationally recognized borders or in any territory under its de facto rule, targeting individuals who are residents, citizens, or otherwise subject to the state’s jurisdiction or de facto authority. This encompasses all individuals within the state's effective control, including citizens, residents, individuals rendered stateless, and non-nationals without legal immigration status.
Systematic and Targeted Deprivation of the Right to Life: The lethal acts are not isolated or random incidents but form part of a discernible pattern, policy, or practice directed against specific individuals or groups identified based on characteristics such as political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or alleged criminal activity. This includes:
Extrajudicial Killings: Deliberate and unlawful killings carried out without any judicial process or in violation of fundamental principles of due process.
Enforced Disappearances Resulting in Death: The deprivation of liberty followed by a refusal to acknowledge the detention or whereabouts of the disappeared person, in circumstances where death is an intended or foreseeable outcome.
Other Lethal Acts with Equivalent Outcome and Intent: Actions, beyond direct killing, that foreseeably and intentionally lead to the death of individuals through means such as torture, deliberate denial of essential medical care, or the creation of conditions of extreme deprivation.
Absence of Due Process and Legal Accountability: The lethal acts are conducted outside the bounds of fair trial guarantees, legal safeguards, and without the possibility of effective judicial review or remedy. There is a systemic failure to investigate, prosecute, and punish those responsible.
Systemic Impunity: A demonstrable pattern of shielding perpetrators from legal accountability exists, facilitated by legal loopholes, political interference, lack of independent oversight, intimidation of the judiciary or witnesses, or the granting of amnesties that contravene international legal obligations.
Emergency Powers and IHL Thresholds: While military or paramilitary forces operating under declared emergency powers are not inherently death squads, they qualify as such if they repeatedly engage in acts described above that bypass non-derogable due process guarantees or, in situations amounting to armed conflict, fail to adhere to the fundamental principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), including distinction, proportionality, and necessity, particularly when such failures result in targeted killings or disappearances outside the context of legitimate combat operations.
Exclusions:
Foreign Operations: Operations conducted by state agents in foreign nations (e.g. assassinations, airstrikes, and other targeted killings abroad carried out by military or intelligence operatives) do not qualify as death squads, even though they may be classified as violations of international humanitarian law.
Counterinsurgency operations: The actions of forces adhering to the IHL principles of distinction, proportionality, and necessity during a recognized non-international armed conflict (NIAC) are not death squads, even if civilian harm occurs.
Isolated and Unsanctioned Acts: Sporadic incidents of police brutality or violence by individual state agents acting outside the scope of state policy or without state sanction do not constitute a death squad.
Lawful Judicial Executions: Executions carried out as a result of a final judgment by a competent court, following a process that respects the international fair trial standards enshrined by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) are not the actions of a death squad.
Non-State Actors Operating Independently: Vigilante groups or criminal organizations acting without demonstrable state direction, control, or sanction do not meet this definition.
1,000
3.00Do we need to know the specific group that does this or would clear symptoms that point to such a group be sufficient? I'm thinking of something similar to people in Russia falling out of windows and down stairs at times that fits Putin. We don't know who is causing the defenestrations and cannot proof that Putin is behind it but it's pretty clear.
@AlexanderTheGreater The evaluation of "yes" should hinge on the emergence of a systemic and repeated pattern of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, or other lethal acts that strongly suggest a state-linked, organized entity operating with implicit or explicit government sanction. Isolated ad hoc assassinations or suspicious deaths lacking a demonstrable connection to such a pattern would not qualify as a "yes." However, if a series of similar incidents targeting specific groups or individuals occurs repeatedly, accompanied by credible reports and a lack of effective investigation or accountability, to the point where probable and reasonable cause exists to conclude that state-sanctioned death squads are operating, then the market should resolve to "yes." The focus should be on the establishment of a clear pattern indicative of systematic action by a state-linked entity, rather than isolated or unproven incidents.
@AlexanderTheGreater To address your point about Russia, the pattern you described – where critics of the government experience repeated suspicious deaths or incapacitations without credible investigations – could indeed meet the criteria for a "yes" evaluation in our definition. While we may lack definitive proof of a named group or explicit orders, the systematic nature of these occurrences targeting a specific population, coupled with the apparent lack of accountability, strongly suggests state involvement.
nvm. Race condition
Yes, incidents similar to Russia as you have described would eval to a yes.
By race condition I suppose you are referring to the Item 3's list of 'political affiliation, ethnicity, etc.' describes examples of characteristics that might define a targeted group. It's inclusive, not requiring all conditions to be met. The key is that the systematic violence targets a specific set of people, indicating a deliberate policy.