Trump’s strike on ‘narco-terrorist’ boat enters murky legal waters
The Trump administration has offered few details about a U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea that it has asserted killed 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers, fueling questions as to whether it violated maritime law or human rights conventions.
President Trump, who announced Tuesday that American forces destroyed a vessel from Venezuela allegedly carrying illegal narcotics, claimed the boat was bound for the U.S. and operated by the Tren de Aragua cartel, which the U.S. has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Trump has shared a video appearing to show drone footage of a boat on the water exploding and then on fire, but the Pentagon has not released any specifics about the strike, including how it was carried out and how much and what kind of drugs were on board.
Nor has the administration said what legal authority officials relied upon to justify the move — an unprecedented and significant escalation by the White House against Latin American drug cartels, given that narcotic runners are typically rounded up by the Coast Guard instead of being fired upon by U.S. aircraft.
Experts have accused the administration of violating international law.
“These extrajudicial killings are a clear violation of international law,” Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement to The Hill. “If there are no consequences, we should be........
© The Hill
