Experts Decry US 'Summary Execution' of Alleged Drug Runners Off Venezuelan Coast

Legal and human rights experts said that Tuesday's deadly US attack on a boat the Trump administration claimed was transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela violated international law.

"Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war," former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth said on social media following the strike, which US President Donald Trump said killed 11 people. "Traffickers must be arrested, not summarily executed, which US forces just illegally did."

"Trump admits he ordered a summary execution—the crime of murder," Roth added. "Drug traffickers are not combatants who can be shot on sight. They are criminal suspects who must be arrested and prosecuted."

Michael Becker, an associate professor of international law at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland, told the BBC Wednesday that the Trump administration's designation of the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua and other drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations "stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point."

"The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narcoterrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets," Becker said. "The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization."

"Not only does the strike appear to have violated the prohibition on the use of force, it also runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law," Becker added.

Although the United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, US military legal advisers have asserted that the country should "act in a manner consistent with its provisions."

Luke Moffett, a professor of international law at Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland, told the BBC that while "force can be used to stop a boat," this should generally be accomplished using "nonlethal measures."

Such action, said Moffett, must be "reasonable and necessary in self-defense where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials," and the US attack was likely "unlawful under the law of the sea."

"It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law."

The peace group CodePink said Wednesday that "even if Washington's claims are accurate, drug trafficking does not justify a death sentence delivered by missile."

"International law is clear: The use of force is only lawful in self-defense or with explicit UN Security Council authorization," the group continued. "This strike had neither. It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law."

"Under US law, it's equally indefensible," CodePink argued. "The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to authorize war. Unilateral action may only be used in emergencies or self-defense, and this strike meets neither."

CodePink continued:

With the US Southern Command assets already deployed in the region, why blow up a vessel instead of capturing and interrogating the crew? If the goal were really to uncover evidence of [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro's alleged involvement, this reckless approach raises only two possibilities: Either the narrative is fabricated and Washington used it as a pretext for a deadly show of force or it's real, and the US chose extrajudicial killing over law, evidence, and humanity.

CodePink called on Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) "to lead the fight in Congress to stop this escalation," urging him to "introduce legislation to block unauthorized military force, hold hearings to expose the dangers of border militarization, insist on transparency of all relevant directives, and rally Congress to cut off funding for these reckless operations."

Tuesday's attack came amid Trump's deployment of an armada of naval warships off the coast of Venezuela, whose socialist government has long endured US threats of regime change—and sometimes more.

Infused with the notion that it has the right to meddle anywhere in the hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine, the US has attacked, invaded, occupied, and otherwise intervened in Latin American and Caribbean nations well over 100 times since the dubious declaration was issued by President James Monroe in 1823.

Since the late 19th century, oil-rich Venezuela has seen US interventions including involvement in border disputes, help with military coups, support for dictators, and attempts to subvert the Bolivarian Revolution—including by officially recognizing opposition figures claiming to be the legitimate presidents of the country.

Critics of US imperialism highlighted Washington's hypocritical policies and practices toward Venezuela.

"Venezuela produces no cocaine, but US warships patrol its coastline under the banner of a 'drug war,'" New Hampshire Peace Action organizing director Michael "Lefty" Morrill wrote Wednesday.

Meanwhile, neighboring Colombia and nearby Peru—the world's two leading cocaine producers—get no such treatment. Nor does Ecuador, which has emerged as one of the world's leading trafficking hubs.

Morrill also briefly explored bits of the long US history of supporting narcotraffickers when strategically expedient, noting that former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega "was first a CIA asset, then branded a narco-dictator and dragged to a US prison."

"The Taliban was once a strategic partner in Afghanistan's opium trade, before being cast as the world's largest trafficker," he added. "'Drugs' are not simply powders; they are pretexts, shaped to fit the contours of empire."