| Acknowledgments | 5 |
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| List of abbreviations | 11 |
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| Table of cases | 13 |
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| Table of treaties | 17 |
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| Table of UN documents | 20 |
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| Table of other materials | 24 |
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| Introduction | 29 |
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| Part I: Groundwork | 35 |
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| 1 Defining ‘targeted killing of terrorists’ | 37 |
| 1.1 Defining ‘targeted killing’ | 37 |
| 1.2 Defining ‘terrorist’ | 45 |
| 1.3 Distinguishable forms and cases | 54 |
| 2 Case studies and aspects relevant for the assessment | 57 |
| 2.1 Case studies | 57 |
| 2.2 Aspects relevant for the assessment | 79 |
| Part II: International Legal Justification | 83 |
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| 3 Human rights | 85 |
| 3.1 Peacetime | 86 |
| 3.2 Armed conflicts | 97 |
| 4 Legal acts of war | 104 |
| 4.1 The (in)dependence of jus ad bellum and jus in bello arguments | 105 |
| 4.2 Lines of argument | 107 |
| 4.3 International armed conflicts | 112 |
| 4.3.1 Conflicts with terrorists as international armed conflicts: Preconditions | 113 |
| 4.3.2 Imputability of non-state terrorist acts to states | 119 |
| 4.3.3 Conflicts with terrorists as international armed conflicts: Conclusions | 135 |
| 4.3.4 The legality of targeted killing in international armed conflicts | 136 |
| 4.3.5 The status of terrorists and conclusions regarding the legality of targeting and killing them | 156 |
| 4.4 Non-international armed conflicts | 172 |
| 4.4.1 The legality of targeted killing in non-international armed conflicts | 172 |
| 4.4.2 Conflicts with terrorists as non-international armed conflicts and conclusions regarding the legality of targeted killing of terrorists | 176 |
| 4.5 Occupied territories and a ‘new’ type of armed conflict | 189 |
| 4.5.1 Occupied territories | 190 |
| 4.5.2 A ‘new’ type of armed conflict | 193 |
| 5 National self-defence | 195 |
| 5.1 Preconditions of the right of national self-defence | 197 |
| 5.2 Armed attack | 198 |
| 5.3 Preventive and reactive national self-defence | 209 |
| 5.4 Proportionality and necessity | 223 |
| 5.5 Legality of targeted killing in terms of the right of national self-defence | 225 |
| 5.6 Applicable international law and limits to the use of targeted killing in self-defence | 227 |
| Part III: Moral Justification | 231 |
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| 6 The rationale for killing in war | 235 |
| 6.1 Morally accepted means of warfare | 235 |
| 6.2 Analogous application of the wartime rationale for killing | 250 |
| 7 Revenge and punishment | 256 |
| 7.1 Revenge | 256 |
| 7.2 Punishment | 258 |
| 8 Consequences (i): Consequentialism as a general moral theory | 265 |
| 9 Feindstrafrecht: Forfeiture of the right to life | 277 |
| 10 Self-Defence: Limited forfeiture of the right to life | 286 |
| 11 Consequences (ii): The situation-dependent justifying force of consequences | 316 |
| 11.1 ‘Counter-terrorism principles’ | 317 |
| 11.2 Consequences ‘regain’ normative force | 324 |
| Concluding remarks | 336 |
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| References | 340 |
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| Index | 354 |
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