![A man walks past a graffiti, denouncing strikes by US drones in Yemen, painted on a wall in Sanaa November 13, 2014 [Khaled Abdullah/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/default.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
The US government’s argument it has the right to assassinate anyone, anywhere heralds its descent into despotism.
![In May 2013, demonstrators stood near a mock drone at the gates of Fort McNair where President Barack Obama was due to speak at the National Defense University in Washington [File: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/RTXZY17.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
He opposes the death penalty in the US, but issued kill orders for Muslims overseas with no trial at all.
![People accused of being affiliated with ISIL are held in camps such as the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria while they await trial in Iraq [Delil Souleiman/AFP]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/781d5c613e784cf38d3702e1222c4a63_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Men, women and children branded ISIL members face death sentences as the West outsources its brand of injustice.
![A lethal injection death chamber in a prison in Huntsville, Texas [David J Sams/Getty Images]](/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/4dd1d962eb824cf08459f0f3cedd8384_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
It may be doomed to be extinct but it is still deadly – with eight executions planned over 10 days in Arkansas.
![A uniform and other supplies that are given to detainees lie on a bed in a cell at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Naval Base in Guantanamo [Mark Wilson/Getty Images]](/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/c36b47f988034e9cb3c20c72420d249b_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
It is 2046 and Clive Stafford Smith has returned to Guantanamo, where his clients were once imprisoned and tortured.
![Aleppo residents prepare to get on to buses to take them out of the besieged city on December 15, 2016 [Malek al-Shimale/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/045b264b27744f2aa6c55daa277b525f_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Courageous endeavours of journalists in Aleppo deliver the news we hear today.
![Sleep deprivation is a venerated torture technique that is part-physical, part-psychological - and one of the many forms of torture used on Guantanamo detainees [Gallo/Getty]](/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013121775532350734_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Clive Stafford Smith examines our inventive capacity for inflicting pain and terror on our fellow human.
Adel al-Gazzar has undergone a decade-long ordeal involving detention without trial, torture and medical malpractice.
Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith explains his life-long opposition to capital punishment.