IRCPPS in the Links: The Drone Arms Race

Erik Voeten writes in the Monkey Cage about the incipient drone arms race between the US, China, and other players:

...The problem with current U.S. policy is that it is implausible to believe that you can set a meaningful precedent through secretive and unilateral legal memos, like the much discussed Barron-Lederman memo. Taking the lead certainly involves setting examples in practice but it would also help to bring these legal issues to multilateral fora. This is a case where the U.S. could increase the credibility of its promise not to overstep bounds by tying its hands. International treaties negotiated with (a sub-set of) nation states provide an imperfect yet important way to do this....