Under the United Nations Charter we are prohibitted from using force insde Pakistan without their consent.. UNLESS.. The host country is both capable and willing to deal with problems itself. The U.S. was justified in concluding that Pakistan was unwilling or unable to stop the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, and that Pakistan's consent was not necessary.
Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, if someone is "hors de combat," or "outside the fight," then targeting even military objectives is a war crime. In other words, "Under the laws of war, you are allowed to target enemy fighters unless they are clearly surrendering or are disabled by injury.
He showed no sign of surrendering they said.
Osama and Al Qaeda are stateless combatants, in that they are claimed by no nation-state nor so they claim to be part of any. As such it is difficult to really apply legal concepts such as those in the Geneva Convention.
Under international law, bin Laden is an enemy combatant. Shooting bin Laden is legal because it was not an "assassination" of a political leader but the killing of a military commander at best as part of an operation i.e. in a military combat. And, in a military combat, an enemy can be lawfully killed even if he is unarmed.
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