Whether or not assassination can be construed properly as lawful or even law enforcing derives from the Westphalian logic of international law, from the multiple sources of international law identified at Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, and from the frequently irreconcilable nature of competing peremptory norms. Were the world legal order more effectively centralized and/or the mechanisms of extradition and prosecution more reliable and well-developed, resorts to assassination as permissible would likely be an oxymoron. In the absence of a capable supranational authority, however, and of a viable enforcement apparatus in the extant system, assassination may regrettably have its limited and proper place. In the case of the assassination of a tyrant, it should be limited to the greatest extent possible to the authoritative persons within the offending state. Second, the assassination should conform to all of the settled rules of warfare as they concern discrimination, proportionality, and military necessity. Third, the assassination should follow intelligence assessments that point "beyond a reasonable doubt" to ongoing and egregious human rights violations. Fourth, the assassination should be founded upon carefully calculated judgments that it would remedy the precipitating human rights violations and that it would do substantially less harm to civilian populations than would the alternative forms of humanitarian intervention. 52 notes