Lionfish boom threatens Atlantic ecosystems

Population explosion of Pacific species is threatening wildlife in western Atlantic and Caribbean waters

They are stunningly beautiful and a big draw for aquariums, but that's where the attraction ends. The Pacific lionfish has proved so unappealing to sharks and other ocean predators that a population explosion is threatening the delicate ecosystems of a new habitat: the western Atlantic and Caribbean.

Lionfish are relatively minor players in their native waters in the western Pacific, but in their new habitat they have been spectacularly successful and are already having a significant impact on the Bahamas and Cuba.

The problem is that they are as voracious as they are attractive, gobbling up vast amounts of young fish, particularly around coral reefs. Their victims include species that keep algae from overwhelming reefs already suffering from human-engendered destruction. They are also diminishing the stocks of food sustaining dwindling populations of commercially exploited fish.

"This is the beginning of the invasion for us, but we have seen how quickly infestations have developed elsewhere," says Ricardo Gomez, director of a national marine park in the island of Cozumel, where Mexico's lionfish are most concentrated. "We have to act quickly."

Nobody knows how lionfish got into the Atlantic, although the most commonly held theory is that they were released from aquariums in Florida in the 1990s.

Periodic sightings increased until it became clear that there was a full-scale population explosion going on in around 2006, initially around the Bahamas.

Lionfish are now found in much of the Caribbean, the US eastern seaboard and down into South America. The fish do not migrate, but their eggs can survive for several days as they float in marine currents.

Since the first sightings near Mexico, off Cozumel in January 2009, lionfish are now regularly spotted almost all the way down the Yucatán peninsula, following one of the great coral reefs of the world. A few weeks ago there was also a sighting in the Gulf of Mexico, to the north.

Scientists do not know why they are doing so well in the Atlantic, but studies suggest their prey take no evasive action when they see them coming.

Bigger predators, including sharks, are also notably disinclined to eat them, apparently deterred by their feathery, venomous spines to the point of spitting them out. Even parasites do not seem to take to lionfish.

"It is as if nothing can stop them," said Mark Hixon, a zoologist from Oregon State University who is currently trying to determine what helps keep them in check in the Pacific. "The best we can hope for is that the native species [in the Atlantic] will eventually react to the lionfish."

In the meantime, efforts to control the invasion are focused on brigades of divers physically removing them from the water. In some places, such as Cozumel, the battle against the lionfish includes tournaments where the diver who brings out the most lionfish gets a prize, and everybody shares a barbecue at the end.

At least one US company is already trying to market lionfish to restaurants as a gourmet dish.

"This is an international problem and it needs a co-ordinated international solution," said Gomez. "I don't think we can ever hope to eradicate them, but if we work together we can hope to control them."

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Topics

• Marine life
 
• Oceans
 
• Wildlife

7 Ways to deal with hateful people

No matter how friendly and good-hearted you may be, you will always have to deal with hateful people at some point in your life.

There are just some individuals out there who enjoying feeding on negative energy and while they might have their own reasons for that, it is never appropriate to put someone else down even if you feel like they deserve it.

It is impossible to shield yourself or your loved ones from negativity, so the only things you can do are learn how to deal with hateful people and grow thicker skin.

1. KEEP CALM

One of the key ways to deal with hateful people is to keep your cool.

Difficult and hateful individuals are just waiting to get a reaction from you, but if you show them that their opinions or perspectives mean nothing to you, they will eventually see no point in attacking your character.

Plus you don’t want to spent any energy or give your attention to trivial things or people such as them.

2. SWITCH PERSPECTIVES

When somebody is tainting your reputation or trashing you as a person, the first question that comes to mind is ‘Why?’ You begin to brainstorm their motive and try to figure out whether it is something that you have done.

Trying to switch your perspective and judging the situation from another point of view may actually be the best thing to do.

Figuring out the root of the problem will open your #eyes to where that person is coming from and help you rationalize the situation on a deeper level.

3. PICK YOUR BATTLES

While approaching the problem head on and confronting the person directly may often solve the problem, other times the best thing to do is to ignore the negativity altogether.

With time, you learn from personal experiences and realize that most personal attacks are not worth your time.

Therefore think whether that hateful person really deserves your #attention.

4. DON’T STOOP TO THEIR LEVEL

The only way to come out on top in this type of a situation is to not stoop to their level.

I know how tempting it may be to point out the other person’s flaws and mistakes when your defense mechanism kicks in, but as Gandhi once said “An eye for an eye makes the whole #world blind.” Instead of making it a bigger deal than it already is, there are classier ways to deal with the situation.

5. UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS THEIR PROBLEM

To be honest, most of the #time when an individual attacks another with no real basis for their claim, it really shows more about their character than anyone else’s.

If they feel like there is a problem and you don’t, it is something that they should deal with themselves.

They may be displacing their anger on you as a result of their own personal problems, in which case it is not something you have to worry about, unless of course that person’s happiness is of your concern.

6. DON’T LET THEIR COMMENTS AFFECT YOU

#Words can hurt only if you give them the power to.

In order to be mentally strong and withstand any hateful remarks thrown your way, it is important to be confident about yourself and build your owns self-esteem.

It is completely possible to feel good about yourself without coming off egocentric or self-absorbed.

It just takes a lot of understanding and self-growth as a person.

7. DETACH YOURSELF FROM THAT PERSON

While you should never easily give up on people in your life, sometimes it is important to prioritize relationships and actually see if some of them even worth the work you put into them.

Toxic friendships or relationships are never worthy the struggle;

they only damage you as a person and leave emotionalscars.

Therefore don’t be afraid to weed out friendships or any other relationships that are just not healthy.

Surround yourself with people who bring you joy and provide support.

One way or another you will have to deal with hateful#people, it’s completely inevitable!

However it doesn’t mean that you are powerless against them.

Full > http://lifestyle.allwomenstalk.com/things-to-do-while-young-the-ultimate-bucket-list

The International Law of Drones

Introduction

When humans first launched themselves into the air to attack their enemies, they used balloons. Later came planes and helicopters. The latest development in the area of airborne attacks takes the human operator out of the air. People may operate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) thousands of miles from the drone’s location.[1]

Drones were first used (like balloons) for surveillance. By 2001, the United States began arming drones with missiles and using them to strike targets during combat in Afghanistan. By mid-2010, over forty states and other entities possessed drones, many with the capability of launching missiles and dropping bombs.[2]

Each new development in military weapons technology invites assessment of the relevant international law. This Insightsurveys the international law applicable to the recent innovation of weaponizing drones.[3]

• The Rise of Attack Drones

Drones were probably invented during or right after the Second World War and were ready for use by the 1950s. During the Vietnam War, the United States fitted drones with cameras and deployed them for reconnaissance. The United States used drones for the same purpose during the Gulf War of 1990-1991 and the Balkans conflicts of the 1990s.

Reportedly in 2000 the United States was ready to employ drones for a dramatic new use: as a launch vehicle for missiles. Drones with missile launch capability were first used in early October 2001 in Afghanistan. On November 3, 2002, Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) agents in Djibouti fired laser-guided Hellfire missiles from a drone at a passenger vehicle in Yemen, killing all passengers on board, including an American citizen.[4]

During the invasion of Iraq that began in March 2003, the United States regularly used reconnaissance and attack drones. That use seems to have ended along with combat operations in 2009. The United States began using attack drones in Pakistan in 2004. The number of attacks jumped dramatically in 2008 and continued to climb in 2009. In 2010, the United States is expected to launch twice as many drone attacks in Pakistan as in 2009.[5] The United States has been using combat drones in Somalia since at least 2006.[6]

The United States is currently deploying two types of combat drones: the MQ-1 or Predator and the MQ-9 or Reaper. The Reaper is similar in design and function to the Predator but may carry heavier weaponry, including 500-pound bombs. The U.S. drone supply is rapidly increasing, and soon the U.S. arsenal will have more unmanned than manned aerial vehicles. Other states and non-state actors have drones or are quickly acquiring them, including Brazil, China, Georgia, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey. [7]

The next developments in drone technology will be improvements in precision, reliability, and automation. Current drone computer programs merely advise human operators on the decision to launch an attack. In future, drone computers may be programmed to launch attacks on the basis of pre-set parameters without the need for a human being to make the real time decision.[8]

• Special Rules for Drones?

In determining what international law rules govern drone use, the most salient feature is not the fact that drones are unmanned. The fact drones carry no human operator may be the most important new technological breakthrough, but the key feature for international law purposes is the type of weaponry drones carry. Drones are currently configured to launch missiles and drop bombs. The missiles and bombs carried by drones are not the type of weaponry permitted in law enforcement efforts. Lawful resort to lethal force in law enforcement is too restricted by international human rights law to permit the use of such heavy firepower. The limitation on the arbitrary deprivation of life, in particular, regulates a state’s resort to lethal force.[9]

During law enforcement operations, resort to lethal force is permissible when needed immediately to save human life.[10]Civilian police forces are acquiring drones, but to date they are using them for surveillance purposes. This is the only lawful use until drones are equipped with rifles, side arms, or other law enforcement-appropriate weaponry.

Whether law enforcement rules govern drone use depends on the situation and not necessarily who is operating the drone. Militaries are sometimes deployed for law enforcement purposes. For example, U.S. Marines were sent to Los Angeles during the 1992 riots, and in April 2009, U.S. Navy snipers shot and killed three Somali pirates who were holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage on a small boat off the coast of Somalia. The Navy officer in charge determined that Captain Richard’s life was in “immediate” danger.[11] This sort of operation cannot be carried out with a missile or a bomb.

By contrast, missiles and bombs are lawful on battlefields because of the combatant’s privilege to kill opposing forces under a lower necessity standard than prevails outside armed conflict zones. Also, within armed conflict zones, there is some tolerance for unintended loss of civilian lives.[12] The use of drones in armed conflict is as lawful as any other battlefield delivery system. Indeed, the drone’s camera and other features may allow for more precise attacks than other launch methods.

The rules governing appropriate resort to missiles and bombs are well established in international law. More study is needed with respect to the psychological effects of distance killing without risk of losing an operator. The ease of killing with drones should be considered in developing the rules of engagement for such operations.[13] Thought must be given to leaders’ willingness to resort to military force in situations of no risk to pilots.[14] It should be remembered that while drone operators may not be at risk, intelligence personnel and people who maintain drones on the ground may be in considerable danger. Additionally, anecdotal information indicates drone operators are seeing much more of the destruction that they cause thanks to the ability of drones to stay at an attack site and send back clear video footage. The toll on drone operators needs consideration as well.

• Drones on the Battlefield

Knowing the international law definition of “armed conflict” is plainly essential to the lawful deployment of drones and other battlefield weapons and tactics.[15] On August 19, 2010, the International Law Association adopted a report on the definition of “armed conflict” that uses extensive state practice to clarify minimum factors that distinguish armed conflict from situations in which law enforcement rules prevail.[16] The report was the result of a five-year study by a committee of eighteen experts from fifteen countries. It concludes:

The Committee . . . undertook extensive research into hundreds of violent situations since 1945 and identified significant state practice and opinio juris establishing that as a matter of customary international law a situation of armed conflict depends on the satisfaction of two essential minimum criteria, namely:

a. the existence of organized armed groups
b. engaged in fighting of some intensity.[17]

Thus, armed conflicts are determined not by declarations but by organized armed fighting, intense enough to justify killing under a lower standard of necessity than is permitted to police.

Battlefield weapons may also be lawfully used before an armed conflict in the following situations: when initiating self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter;[18] when authorized by the UN Security Council; when a government seeks to suppress internal armed conflict; and, perhaps, when a state is invited to assist a government in suppressing internal armed conflict.[19]

The rules governing resort to force in self-defense are found in Article 51 of the UN Charter and a number of decisions by international courts and tribunals. The International Court of Justice made clear in the Nicaragua case that an attack giving rise to the right of self-defense must be a significant attack, as opposed to a “frontier incident” or low-level shipments of weapons to insurgents.[20] The ICJ has also made clear in several cases that to exercise military force lawfully on the territory of another state, that other state must be responsible for a significant armed attack. The decision most relevant to drone use is Congo v. Uganda,[21] in which the ICJ found unlawful Uganda’s use of force on the territory of Congo to halt years of cross-border incursions by armed groups based in Congo. In reaching this holding, the Court found that Congo was not legally responsible for the armed groups—it did not control them. Even Congo’s failure to take action against the groups did not justify Uganda’s use of force in Congo.

Additionally, in the Nicaragua and Nuclear Weapons decisions, the ICJ held that even where a state is responsible for a significant attack, there is no right to use force in self-defense if the use of force is not necessary to accomplish the purpose of defense and/or the purpose cannot be accomplished without a disproportionate cost in civilian lives and property. The ICJ found that “there is a ‘specific rule whereby self-defence would warrant only measures which are proportional to the armed attack and necessary to respond to it, a rule well established in customary international law.’ This dual condition applies equally to Article 51 of the Charter, whatever the means of force employed.”[22]

In 2001, the United States took the position that Afghanistan’s Taliban government was legally responsible for al Qaeda so that under the law of self-defense, the United States had the right to use military force in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. The use of force in self-defense in Afghanistan ended in 2002 when a loya jurga of prominent Afghans selected Hamid Karzai to be Afghanistan’s leader.[23] Today, the United States and other international forces are in Afghanistan at President Karzai’s invitation in an attempt to repress an insurrection. The lawful use of force respecting the Afghan insurrection must be limited to Afghanistan and be within the bounds of Afghanistan’s request.

Some commentators have also argued in recent years that drones may be used in situations analogous to an asserted right for ships at sea to exercise “unit self-defense.”[24] If a ship is attacked, all ships of the “unit” may counter-attack all ships in the attacking “unit.” Little or no authority exists to support applying the “unit self-defense” right outside of an armed conflict that includes hostilities at sea. Otherwise, a ship would presumably be allowed to defend itself much as an individual would when being attacked.

Another argument concerns the right of hot pursuit. Similar to the argument for unit self-defense, hot pursuit is a highly limited maritime right of law enforcement agents to pursue fleeing criminal suspects. The use of lethal force during such a pursuit is subject to peacetime law enforcement limitations and thus would preclude the types of weapons currently being used with drones.[25] Because Somalia lacks effective government, the United States might have the right to carry out law enforcement operations there. Such operations would violate the principle of non-intervention but might be justifiable if in compliance with the law of counter-measures. The Security Council has authorized some law enforcement operations against pirates in Somalia.[26]

Finally, arguments have been made for a right of pre-emptive self-defense to kill people who may engage in future violent action.[27] However, as explained above, the right of self-defense in international law is based on response to an armed attack, not pre-empting future attacks.[28] Nor does the law of self-defense encompass a right to initiate military action against an individual or small group, especially when the state where those persons are located is not legally responsible for their actions.

• Conclusion

Commentators continue to debate whether drone technology represents the next revolution in military affairs. Regardless of the answer to that question, drones have not created a revolution in legal affairs. The current rules governing battlefield launch vehicles are adequate for regulating resort to drones. More research must be undertaken, however, to understand the psychological effects of deploying unmanned vehicles and the effects on drone operators of sustained, close visual contact with the aftermath of drone attacks.

About the Author:

Mary Ellen O’Connell, an ASIL member, is Robert and Marion Short Chair in Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution—Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame, Vice President of the American Society of International Law, and Chair of the Use of Force Committee of the International Law Association.

ENDNOTES

[1]For basic technical information on drones, see Peter W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (2009).

[2]See Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Philip Alston, Addendum, Study on Targeted Killings, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/14/24/Add.6, at 9 (May 28, 2010), available athttp://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf [hereinafter Report of the Special Rapporteur]; see also infra note 7 and accompanying text.

Full > https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/14/issue/37/international-law-drones