A/HRC/28/38 of, the right to life required that individuals know the circumstances in which they might be subject to lethal force by a Government. She also noted that meaningful responses needed to be provided when plausible allegations of violations of the right to life were presented. Those should include a careful explanation regarding the circumstances in which armed drones had been used.6 She noted that this was a challenge. She referred to a drone strike that took place in Yemen in 2013, in which at least 27 people attending a wedding procession were killed or injured. While there was acknowledgement of the strike and an investigation, the official response was that there had been no civilian casualties. She suggested that meaningful accountability required more than a statement that there were no violations of the right to life or that the operations complied with the principle of legality. 26. Ms. Kebriaei noted that States must be transparent about the legal criteria that were applied including when, where and against whom lethal force could be used, as well as the number of casualties, where the armed drone had been used, who the individuals killed were, and how they were classified. She noted that there was consensus across the political divide in the States concerned that Governments could and should be more transparent. While States had taken some steps in that direction, which was proof in itself that it could be done, further urgent steps were needed. 27. Turning to the rights of victims of drone strikes to an effective remedy, the Legal Director of the Foundation for Fundamental Rights said that since June 2014, 77 more people had been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan. Like thousands of other victims, their identity was not known. There were also tens of thousands of other individuals who suffered psychologically from living under the constant threat of being targeted. As the States using armed drones refused to disclose the numbers of casualties or the dates of drone strikes, or investigate when there were credible reports that civilians had been killed, the Foundation for Fundamental Rights had been trying to identify those who were “on the other side of the missile” as a first step towards accountability. 28. Mr. Akbar noted that judicial review in the domestic courts had so far been the most successful accountability strategy for victims of armed drones. Referring to his own work, he highlighted two successful cases before the courts in Pakistan. On 11 May 2013, the Peshawar High Court7 declared drone strikes illegal, ordered the Government of Pakistan to stop them and gave comprehensive orders to the Government to seek international redress on behalf of the victims.8 A court-ordered investigation also showed that over the course of five years, drone strikes had killed 1,449 civilians, in contrast to a small number of militants. A recent ruling by the High Court in Islamabad requested that the officials responsible for the use of drones inside Pakistan be held criminally responsible for the violation of the right to life and ordered the initiation of criminal proceedings against them. However, he noted that despite those judgments, drone strikes continued and not a single victim in over 350 drone strikes had been compensated, nor had any information been released as to why those individuals had been targeted. 6 7 8 This was recalled by the European Parliament in its resolution on the use of armed drones (2014/2567(RSP)). See Foundation for Fundamental Rights v. Federation of Pakistan and four others (PLD 2013 Peshawar 94). This included orders to take the matter to the Security Council and, in the event that it did not succeed there, to request an urgent meeting of the General Assembly in order to resolve the matter, as well as to request formally that the Secretary-General establish a war crimes tribunal to investigate the matter. 9