The United States are not engaged in a war with Yemen and the Yemeni government is considered a close ally to the US in its military operations fighting terrorism. In this regard, Alkarama's alternative report firstly examines the applicability of the Covenant to US military operations in Yemen, which is defined at its article 2.

The United States interpret article 2 of the Covenant very narrowly, by refusing to recognizing the Covenant's extraterritorial applicability to its agents operating abroad, considering that the Covenant "appl[ies] only to individuals who were both within the territory of a State Party and within that State Party's jurisdiction" (our emphasis – as set out in the US's national report at paragraph 505), and therefore does not apply to its military operations in Yemen. This narrow interpretation of Covenant's article in fact contradicts the jurisprudence issued by the Committee and other prominent international judicial bodies, and cannot not be invoked by the United States to justify violation of its obligations under the Covenant.

Furthermore, article 6 of the Covenant states that "(...) no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." The Committee's jurisprudence confirms the central character of the right to life in the Covenant by stating that "[t]he right enshrined in this article (article 6) is the supreme right of the human being." Alkarama's contribution provides the Committee's experts with ten documented strikes clearly illustrating grave violations to the right to life committed by the United States, as all strikes investigated by Alkarama were carried out in absence of any due judicial process.

We have documented the deaths of more than fifty civilians caused by American drones in Yemen, including the elderly, women and children, without any transparent and independent judicial proceedings to condemn the perpetrators. Nor have any victims' families been provided reparation for the loss or injury of their loved ones. Moreover, the strikes documented in this report show that the majority of the targeted individuals could easily have been arrested and tried as they were not in hiding and were in fact well known in their local communities.

Alkarama therefore recommend the Committee to take all measures possible to recall the United States of its obligation to respect all the Covenant's provisions, in particular the right to life contained in article 6.

We suggest recommendations to the United States should at minimum be as follows:

1) Immediately cease all violations of the Covenant's provisions, and in particular violations of article 6.

2) Launch independent and transparent inquiries into acts having led to violations of the right to life as set out in article 6, and condemn perpetrators of extrajudicial executions.