A/HRC/44/38 international jurisprudence44 and the text of human rights treaties, including derogations45. Further, by rejecting its human rights obligations extraterritorially, the US is an outlier, particularly as it relates to the obligation to abide by jus cogen norms, such as the prohibition against arbitrary killings. 34. A far more straightforward and, in the Special Rapporteur’s view, reasonable and logical way of protecting potential targets as well as civilians in situations where the nature of the armed conflict is difficult to ascertain, would be to apply human rights law to their protections. 35. Such a position should certainly apply to extraterritorial targeted strikes in nonbelligerent States: these strikes occur outside the territories of the States engaged in hostilities and thus cannot be considered part of an armed conflict subject to IHL. Arguing otherwise will potentially subject non-belligerent civilians and civilian objects to “proportional” harm simply because “an individual sought by another State is in their midst”46. For this reason, the ICRC has argued, at least in the context of NIACs, that targeted strikes in non-belligerent States against personnel purportedly engaged in a conflict should be governed by IHRL, not IHL.47 Just as the ICRC finds these non-belligerent circumstances determinative for targeted strikes in a NIAC, should they not be found determinative in an attack against a State official on the territory of a third State as well? 48 36. Finally, even if, for the sake of arguments, one was to conclude that this one strike against General Soleimani triggered an IAC, and that it must be assessed against IHL, one may interrogate whether IHL standards are the best “fit,” for lack of a better word, to assess the act and the situation – a single strike, one or two cars targeted, 10 individuals killed, in a non-belligerent country, surrounded by people unaware of and unprepared for an international armed conflict. This is far from the battlefields that IHL was designed to regulate or the urban warfare which the international community is increasingly confronting.49 37. As highlighted in her thematic report, the Special Rapporteur would recommend that other sources of law, besides IHL, be considered, in the first place IHRL, and that a systemic integration and purposive interpretation ought to be adopted. Such a method, in her view, will end up playing down the combatant status of the target(s), focusing instead on issues in relation to military necessity, proportionality and humanity.50 38. By failing to consider systemic integration and purposive interpretation along with the specificities of the context, the application of a “first shot” theory to the targeted killing of a State actor translates into the real possibility that ALL soldiers, anywhere in the world, could constitute a legitimate target. This approach may well trigger “ultra-short international armed conflicts: but it would also “effectively evaporate the distinction between war and peace”.51 39. A first strike approach by a drone strike against a State actor in a third, non-belligerent, State, raises more questions than it solves. In the context of the strike against General Soleimani, it is the opinion of the Special Rapporteur that international human rights law remains the applicable framework. The US and Iran had not been and have not been considered to be involved in an IAC before or after the strike and the strike occurred in a civilian setting in an area outside of active hostilities and in a non-belligerent State. 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 30 See for instance ICJ, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996. Marco Milanovic, “Norm Conflicts, International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law », Journal of Conflict & Security Law, 2009. ICRC’s 2011 Challenges of Modern Warfare, at 21–22. ICRC 2011 Challenges of Modern Warfare at 21–22. See also Public Committee Against Torture v. Government, 2006, para 4, applying IHRL principles to targeted strikes in a non-battlefield environment. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/explosive-weapons-cities-civilian-devastation-and-suffering-muststop. Supreme Court of Israel, Public Committee against Torture in Israel v. Government of Israel, 2006. https://opiniojuris.org/2020/01/20/soleimani-and-targeted-killings-of-enemy-combatants-part-irevisiting-the-first-shot-theory/.