UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26: The unanimous resolution by Pakistan’s democratically elected parliament earlier this year negated any suggestion that the country had consented to American drone attacks, UN human rights expert Ben Emmerson told reporters at a press conference on Friday.

Responding to questions on legality of drone attacks, he said greater transparency and accountability were needed in the light of international obligation to ensure full reparations to victims and their families.

Mr Emmerson said he would issue a final report on the matter after having investigated individual drone strikes with significant casualties and provided the states involved with an opportunity to respond. It was important to gather contextual information to understand the circumstances of the attacks, he said.

Agencies add: Mr Emmerson and Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial and arbitrary killings, called for more transparency from the United States and other countries about their drone programmes, saying their secrecy was the biggest obstacle to determining the impact on civilians.

The two UN investigators, who presented two reports on the subject at the world body, also called on other countries to speak up about when deadly drone strikes were acceptable.

Mr Emmerson said the US had justified some drone strikes against terrorist targets in other countries by arguing that it was engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda with no boundaries. He said other countries disagreed with that analysis but few had spelled out their own positions.

“We all recognise that the moment other states start to use this technology in similar ways, we are facing a situation which could escalate into a breakdown of peace and security,” said Mr Emmerson.

In his report, Mr Emmerson said he received statistics from the Pakistani government indicating that at least 2,200 people had been killed in drone strikes in the country since 2004. Of those, at least 400 were civilians.

But he said independent verification was difficult and the involvement of the CIA in counter-terrorism operations in both Pakistan and Yemen “has created an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency”.

Mr Emmerson said that any time civilians were killed “the state responsible is under an obligation to conduct a prompt, independent and impartial fact-finding inquiry and to provide a detailed and public explanation”.

The US considers its drone programme in Pakistan to be a key weapon against insurgent groups that it says stage cross-border forays into Afghanistan. But most Pakistanis believe the strikes kill large numbers of civilians, raising tensions between the two countries and complicating their cooperation in the fight against militants.

Mr Heyns expressed disappointment with the US response to reports this week by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International questioning the legality of the drone strikes.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US “would strongly disagree” with any claims that the US had acted improperly, arguing that American actions followed all applicable law.

Both Mr Emmerson and Mr Heyns said the use of drone technology in a deadly strike was not the inherent problem. They said that in many cases, drone technology allowed precision targeting that could reduce the number of civilian casualties.

“Drones are not inherently illegal weapons. They are here to stay,” Mr Heyns said. “The main focus should be on legal parameters” on when to use them.