Second, on 7 May 1999 a US B-2 bomber destroy! the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The crew believ! that they were targeting the nearby Yugoslav F!eral, and apparently because outdat! maps were us! hit the embassy instead (see again the ICTY OTP report at para. 80 ff).
Let’s assume that this error narrative is true, although it is (still) widely reject! in both China and Serbia. The issue here is that the error, although it may have been honest, was likely not reasonable as there were plenty of feasible precautions that could have been taken to avoid it. And here the US did pay compensation to Chinese nationals affect! by the attack and to China itself for the damage to the property, although it took pains to emphasize that the payment it was making was ex gratia and not an admission of legal liability (see more here, here and here).
The upshot of this analysis is that IHL appears to excuse uses of lethal force against civilians or how to create a photography portfolio objects which result from honest and reasonable mistakes of fact. Honest but unreasonable mistakes of facts would not be excus!, since they would inevitably be in violation of IHL rules on precaution.
International human rights law
The rules of IHRL on the same point are similar, if somewhat clearer and more explicit. The leading case tips for advertising on google shopping remains McCann v. Unit! Kingdom before the European Court of Human Rights. UK SAS special forces kill! several IRA terrorists in Gibraltar, having been told by their superiors that the terrorists pos! an imminent threat to the lives of others as they could remotely detonate a car bomb. There was in fact no such bomb.
The Court held that (para. 200)
The Court accepts that the soldiers honestly believ!, in the light of the information that they had been given, as set out above, that it was sault data to shoot the suspects in order to prevent them from detonating a bomb and causing serious loss of life (see paragraph 195 above). The actions which they took, in ob!ience to superior orders, were thus perceiv! by them as absolutely necessary in order to safeguard innocent lives.