No one is going to dispute the importance of the right to life, or indeed the importance of treating all combatants with respect. But it is worth pointing out that this country is now pretty much out on a limb, of all the major war-capable nations, in the way it has allowed “legal creep” into what was an exclusively military domain. The Americans would not dream of exposing their soldiers to this kind of judicial second-guessing. They whacked bin Laden without a second thought; they execute whole families in drone strikes. The French have a derogation that somehow means they don’t have to apply the ECHR to their military in the way that we do. The risk for Britain is clearly that it will be harder and harder for the Armed Forces to conduct operations without legal paranoia, paralysis and expense.