U.S. strikes on boats alleged to be carrying drugs may be 'crimes against humanity,' UN expert says

A combination image shows two screengrabs from a video posted on the X account of the White House on Sept. 15, 2025. The U.S. government campaign on alleged drug-carrying boats is now past the one-year mark, with international law experts condemning the attacks. (The White House/Reuters)Social SharingA United Nations special rapporteur has published a damning report on the U.S. military campaign of missile strikes on boats allegedly transporting drugs, characterizing them as "serial extrajudicial killings."

Ben Saul, chair of international law at the University of Sydney, concluded his report on the attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean before the most recent of incidents. The U.S. military attacked a boat it suspected of being used to smuggle drugs in the Caribbean Sea on Saturday, killing four people to bring the overall total of dead in the campaign to at least 231 people across 69 strikes since September 2025.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has said it has the right to self-defence in what it calls an armed conflict with narco-terrorists. Last year, the White House invoked the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to proclaim that Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is engaged in an "invasion" and "irregular warfare" against the U.S. through its transport of drugs.

The administration sought to connect Tren de Aragua's drug operations to the Nicolás Maduro government. However, the strikes on boats have continued even after the U.S. military seized Maduro in a January operation and embarked on a working relationship with a former member of his government, interim President Delcy Rodriguez.

Canada restricts drug boat intel from U.S. navy's Caribbean airstrike operation

In his report, Saul wrote that the U.S. attacks are unjustifiable under a wide range of criteria, ranging from international humanitarian law, international law of the sea, international counterterrorism law, narcotics suppression conventions and notions of national or personal self-defence.

"The United States military attacks are … contrary to international law, violate the human right to life and plausibly constitute crimes against humanity," said Saul.

Independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council have also previously condemned the attacks.

The American claims of self-defence fail on a number of grounds, Saul said, with the U.S. never presenting evidence of the threat of an armed attack from any of the boats, making the military's attacks disproportionate.

The U.S. hasn't established that the Venezuelan government has sent the boats, according to Saul, and even if they had, "drug trafficking is not equivalent to the military attack," he wrote.

Most drug use does not result in death or immediate serious injury, the UN rapporteur said, and there can be a series of intervening activities in the supply chain before a user consumes drugs.

"There are reasonable grounds to believe that the reported 68 attacks that killed 223 people constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law," said Saul.

"Murder means the unlawful killing of a person where the perpetrator intended to cause death or knew that it would occur in the ordinary course of events."

CBC speaks to a former adviser to the U.S. Department of State on the strikes on alleged drug boats

Saul also raised concerns in his report about three more vessels that have "sunk in suspicious circumstances without any claim of responsibility."

The list includes the Ecuadorian boat Fiorella, whose eight to 10 crew members disappeared at sea in January. The crew reported being surveilled, and relatives of the men aboard say the Fiorella was a fishing vessel.

Gloria Alexandra Bravo Cedeño, the prosecutor in Ecuador tasked with investigating what happened to the three vessels, was fatally shot in June. No arrests have been made in connection with her killing.

Maria Mero, right, alongside her mother Maria Cueva, speaks to Reuters on June 4 in Jaramijo, Ecuador, about her husband Gabriel Aladino Mero Delgado and brother Jefferson Ariel Mero Cueva, who disappeared from the Fiorella earlier this year. (Karen Toro/Reuters)Criteria for striking boats classifiedAt a July committee hearing, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a wide range of intelligence from multiple sources is assessed before the strikes — which have been carried out by drones and fighter jets — take place.

"Every strike has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination whether the call is legal or not, and this is done by the Department of War — the way it has been done in other theatres around the world," said Rubio.

"I can tell you they do walk away from strikes," he said at another point.

U.S. authorization of 2nd strike of Venezuelan ship questioned

The U.S. Defence Department, renamed the Department of War by the Trump administration, is using three criteria to determine whether to strike, U.S. senators have said. What they are remains the subject of classified briefings.

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, of Virginia, while not divulging the classified material, expressed wonder at the July hearing that the the presence of narcotics on a boat is not among those targeting criteria.

Sen. Rand Paul, arguably the foremost Republican critic of the strikes, added that the presence of arms also is not among the criteria. Paul, from Kentucky, expressed concerns about the campaign, given the precedent in drug interdiction efforts.

"The statistics from the [U.S.] Coast Guard say that when we interdict alleged drug boats in the historic way, the way we've always done it, about one in four don't have drugs," said Paul.

"We make mistakes. We see something suspicious about the boat, we stop them and they don't have drugs on board."

These Trinidadian fishermen were killed in a U.S. boat strike. Now their families are suing

U.S. sending survivors of strike on alleged 'drug-carrying submarine' back to South America, Trump says

Lawmakers from both parties were particularly alarmed by reports from a Sept. 2, 2025, strike that killed two people who had climbed on top of part of a boat that had been partially destroyed in an initial attack.

That incident, Saul wrote, is "in violation of the right to life and the duty to rescue at sea."

As with other strikes, the U.S. military on Saturday did not provide evidence that the vessel hit in the Caribbean was ferrying drugs. A video posted on X showed an image of what appeared to be a moving boat followed by a flash.

Vice-President JD Vance has said on social media that "killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military."

Gen. Francis Donovan, shown at a U.S. Senate committee hearing on Jan. 15, has testified that the strikes might not be the most effective way of dealing with drug trafficking at sea. (Mariam Zuhaib/The Associated Press)The U.S. has been beset for the past decade or so, as has Canada, with drug toxicity deaths that have largely been attributed to to the potency of fentanyl and similar opioids.

The Venezuelan gangs are more known to smuggle cocaine, though analysts say not in as large quantities as gangs or cartels from Colombia or Bolivia. It's also not clear if the attacked boats were transporting any product that was ultimately destined to arrive in the U.S., as opposed to Europe or Africa.

Gen. Francis Donovan, who leads the U.S. military's Southern Command, admitted in testimony to Congress in March that boat strikes "will be one of the main tools, and probably not the most effective" in limiting the illegal flow of drugs.

Why U.S. strikes on suspected drug boats have Canada ‘between a rock and a hard place’

The Washington Post reported in late July that a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration assessment provided to lawmakers indicated that traffickers are both adapting their routes by sea to stay out of international waters, as well as diversifying by using more aircraft to transport drugs.

Mark Carney's government has generally avoided publicly criticizing the strikes unless pressed by reporters, though the Canadian military has said it has restricted intelligence to Operation Southern Spear, the U.S. campaign that has included targeting the boats.