- Governments should publicly object to the Trump administration’s unlawful strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats.
- The rules-based international order depends on countries speaking out against violations, even when they’re committed by powerful friends.
- Governments that partner with the US on counter-narcotics efforts need to take steps to ensure they are not complicit in these extrajudicial killings.
(Washington, DC) – Governments that partner with the United States on counternarcotics efforts should join other nations that have publicly objected to the Trump administration’s unlawful strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats, Human Rights Watch said today.
These governments—Canada, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and others—should also take steps to determine whether some of their intelligence sharing activity with the United States risks making them complicit in the strikes. They should make public any internal legal assessments as to whether the US strikes are violating international law, use their bilateral relationships to raise concerns directly with US officials, and push for individual criminal accountability for those responsible.
“The UK, Canada, and other allied nations who partner with the United States on counternarcotics efforts have ample evidence that the US is unlawfully killing people at sea,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “The rules-based international order depends on countries speaking out against violations, even when they’re committed by powerful friends.”
Since mid-September 2025, the Trump administration has conducted at least 23 lethal military strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and nearby parts of the Pacific Ocean and killed 87 people, claiming they were targeting “narco-terrorists” threatening US security. There are only two known survivors. The US strikes are unlawful extrajudicial executions that violate the fundamental rights to life and due process, Human Rights Watch said. Under both US and international law, those accused of crimes should be arrested and tried, not summarily executed.
The UK, France, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands have significant influence in the Caribbean due to their overseas territories in the region. All three governments are also participants in Campaign Martillo, a multinational counternarcotics detection, monitoring, and interdiction operation that includes US Navy and Coast Guard vessels, along with military and law enforcement units from a dozen other nations, including Canada. These countries should perform due diligence and evaluate their maritime cooperation with the United States to ensure that they do not risk complicity in the Trump administration’s campaign of extrajudicial killings, Human Rights Watch said.
Australia and New Zealand, which are part of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing community with the United States, UK, and Canada where the governments share all signals and geospatial intelligence by default, may also find themselves implicated in the strikes and should take steps to evaluate their own risks. According to Privacy International, which works on the intersection of technology and rights, countries within the Five Eyes framework “jointly run operations centers where operatives from multiple intelligence agencies of the Five Eyes States work alongside each other” and “the level of cooperation under the agreement is so complete that the national product is often indistinguishable.”
Officials from Barbados, Belize, Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Iran, Mexico, and Russia have been pointed in their assessments that the US strikes violate international law. However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly stated that no diplomat attending a recent meeting of the Group of Seven in Canada expressed any concern directly to him. When asked, the foreign ministers of Canada and Australia both suggested that it was up to the United States to make its own assessments of the legality of its conduct.
On October 31, the United Nations human rights chief said the strikes are unlawful extrajudicial killings, noting that “none of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them.” On December 2, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expressed “deep concern” about the strikes and called upon the United States to “refrain from employing lethal military force in the context of public security operations, ensuring that any counter-crime or security operation fully complies with international human rights standards; conduct prompt, impartial, and independent investigations into all deaths and detentions resulting from these actions; and adopt effective measures to prevent recurrence.”
Governments that partner with the US on counter-narcotics efforts need to take steps to ensure they are not complicit in these extrajudicial killings, including through intelligence-sharing activity, Human Rights Watch said.
“Drug smuggling is a serious crime, but the world’s governments have developed better ways to confront it,” Yager said. “Governments should condemn the boat strikes as both unlawful and ineffective.”
Operation Southern Spear
Operation Southern Spear, which was announced on November 13, is focused on what the US government describes as “eliminating narcoterrorists.” President Trump made the intent of the boat strikes clear in October: “I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described the operation as an effort to “remove narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere.”
On November 28, the Washington Post reported that Hegseth directed a second strike on a vessel with defenseless crew who had survived an initial September 2 attack with the express purpose of killing them. Hegseth has denied that he ordered the second strike while publicly insisting that “Admiral Frank Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.” Hesgeth has also claimed that “these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes.’”
When asked about interdiction, which has traditionally been the US approach to counternarcotics smuggling, on November 12, Rubio said that “interdictions continue. The problem is that interdictions alone are not effective... Interdictions have limited to no deterrent effect.” Rubio’s comments suggest that the killings are intended as a deterrent to alleged criminal activity, rather than a response to any imminent threat.
The family of a Colombian man killed in one of the strikes has filed an individual petition on his behalf with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The Applicable Law Governing Operation Southern Spear
While the Trump administration asserts that Operation Southern Spear is part of an armed conflict governed by the laws of war, this is not true. The United States is not engaged in any armed conflict with groups allegedly trafficking drugs from Venezuela and the administration has offered no meaningful evidence to the contrary.
The Trump administration maintains that some of these groups are sponsored to some degree by the Venezuelan government but has offered no evidence to support that assertion either. In fact, this “armed conflict” framing appears transparently intended to create a legal justification for strikes that are, in reality, patently unlawful. But the administration cannot change the legal framework governing its actions simply by asserting the existence of an imaginary armed conflict, Human Rights Watch said.
Members of the US Congress have also challenged the administration's characterization that it is engaged in an armed conflict. In a recent letter to the president, five ranking members of relevant House committees, including Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security, noted that “Congress has the sole constitutional responsibility to declare war and to authorize the use of force. You have failed to secure such authorization for these strikes.”
Speaking on December 4 after a briefing with admirals with knowledge of the strikes, US Senator Chris Coons said: “The underlying judgment that frames this entire operation is that if there is a boat with narcotics and people who are affiliated with a narcotics trafficking organization, that that’s a legitimate target. I’ve still got questions about that.”
Since these strikes have not been carried out pursuant to any armed conflict, their legality should be assessed with reference to US obligations under international human rights law. The strikes are in flagrant violation of those obligations.
The United States has a legitimate interest in preventing drug trafficking into its territory, but this is a matter of law enforcement. Under international human rights standards, law enforcement officials can deliberately use lethal force only when it is unavoidable to protect lives. The fact that the US government is using military personnel to carry out what should be law enforcement efforts does not make this framework any less applicable, Human Rights Watch said.
The deliberate killing of criminal suspects under any other circumstances, and certainly as a deterrent or simply as a convenient alternative to arrest and prosecution, is a grave human rights violation. The US boat strikes constitute extrajudicial killings, unlawful killings carried out by state authorities without any legal justification or process. That conclusion has also been advanced by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The UN General Assembly, in the outcome document for its 2016 special session on the world drug problem, emphasized that countries should “promote and implement effective criminal justice responses to drug-related crimes to bring perpetrators to justice that ensure legal guarantees and due process safeguards pertaining to criminal justice proceedings, including practical measures to uphold the prohibition of arbitrary arrest and detention and of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and to eliminate impunity, in accordance with relevant and applicable international law and taking into account United Nations standards and norms on crime prevention and criminal justice, and ensure timely access to legal aid and the right to a fair trial.”
Individual Criminal Responsibility for Strikes
Under international human rights law, the United States has the duty to investigate, prosecute, and punish those responsible for the extrajudicial killings. The individuals responsible for these strikes could be liable for crimes under US law, including the uniform code for military justice.
A classified memo circulated by the US Justice Department reportedly concludes that the laws of war apply to these strikes and that its troops are not liable for unlawful killings. However, unnamed US government lawyers have voiced concerns to the media, saying “there’s no world where this is legal.” The US Manual for Courts-Martial, which applies to all orders, points out that although superior orders are presumed lawful, this presumption “does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.”
Risk of Complicity from Joint Operations in the Caribbean
Since 2012, 14 countries including the United States have cooperated in a joint law enforcement effort they call Campaign Martillo. For over a decade, operations under this multinational counternarcotics initiative have primarily occurred in international waters or with host nations’ consent in their territorial seas, emphasizing an interdiction approach.
Canada refers to its contributions to US counternarcotics efforts in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific as Operation Caribbe, which is governed by a 2010 Memorandum of Understanding that among other things allows US Coast Guard to operate from Canadian warships.
Under the arrangement, according to the Canadian Department of National Defense’s website, Canadian aircraft, warships, and their crews patrol international airspace to detect and track vessels of interest and provide leads to US Coast Guard forces that “approach and intercept them.” A CBC investigation corroborated a report from Project Ploughshares, an independent research institute which promotes disarmament and peace, which found that a Canadian-made camera system is most likely the tool that the United States has been using in the strikes.
The International Law Commission, a United Nations expert body mandated to advance the development of international law, adopted in 2001 the Articles on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts. The articles, which are widely accepted as reflecting customary international law, provide that a state bears responsibility under international law if it “aids or assists” another state to commit an internationally wrongful act “with knowledge of the circumstances.” It also provides that “the assisting State will only be responsible to the extent that its own conduct has caused or contributed to the internationally wrongful act.”
At this point, it would be hard to claim participants in Campaign Martillo or Operation Caribbe do not have knowledge of the broader circumstances, including the 23 strikes on vessels killing 87 people. If the intelligence they share is being used by the US military to help identify strike targets, these governments may be complicit in the Trump administration’s extrajudicial killings. Countries should perform due diligence in their maritime cooperation with the United States to ensure that this is not the case.
Public Comments on Boat Strikes
When asked about the strikes, Foreign Minister of Australia Penny Wong described “Australia’s approach” to “transnational drug crimes or smuggling” as working to “disrupt and where possible to prosecute,” adding that “Australia is not involved in these US actions.” While maintaining that Australia “supports the observance of international law,” Wong declined to characterize the legality of the US strikes, saying instead “it is for the United States to articulate the legal basis of its actions.”
Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley criticized the strikes without mentioning the United States directly, stating: “We do not accept that any entity has the right to engage in extrajudicial killings of persons that they suspect of being involved in criminal activities…. We stand for the rule of law, and we believe that if there is other intelligence available that would cause you to take action that is an immediate threat to you as a nation, then you have a duty to share it with us. But on the face of it, conflating law enforcement with military action is a dangerous step.”
Belize’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Francis Fonseca said on the sidelines of the Carribean Community (CARICOM) summit that the killings were “extrajudicial” acts and that “if you suspect that people are trafficking drugs or are engaged in criminal activity, there’s a process to deal with those individuals so that there are no unilateral decisions to kill people.”
In September, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appeared to criticize the US boat strikes without referring to them directly, saying in his remarks to the UN General Assembly that “using lethal force in situations that do not constitute armed conflicts amounts to executing people without a judgment.” Then in November, President Lula said: “A head of state is not there to kill people, you’re there to arrest them. You have to choose whether you want to be a respected and loved leader or a hated and feared leader.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Ahmed has asserted that “the United States has made clear that it is using its own intelligence” to target the boat strikes. However, it is not sufficient to accept the US government’s assurances that it is not leveraging shared intelligence for its unlawful strikes. In contrast, when asked directly about the legality of the strikes, she declined to address the matter, saying instead that “it is within the purview of US authorities to make that determination.”
When asked about media reports that Canada does not want its intelligence being used to support the strikes, Ahmed said “we have no involvement in the operations that you’re referring to.” A spokesperson for the Department of National Defense clarified that Canadian Armed Forces activities under Operation Caribbe “are separate and distinct from the activities you describe involving other branches of the United States military.”
Colombia, a participant in Campaign Martillo, has been highly critical of the US approach. In a social media post on November 12, President Gustavo Petro said that “if intelligence communications only serve to kill fishermen with missiles, it is not only irrational, but a crime against humanity, insofar as the murder of civilians is systematic,” while also reasserting his commitment to the counternarcotics mission. He added that if Colombia were guaranteed that intelligence sharing would not be used to violate human rights, then it would continue to collaborate.
French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said publicly that he believes the strikes violate international law. The director of the French Anti-Drug Office said in a media interview that “no European country, including France, would send operational intelligence to the United States in the current situation if it could be used to justify a military strike on a ship…. The question has not been raised. But if it were, we would not pass on any intelligence. This is not just a French position, but a European one.”
Prime Minister Dick Schoof of the Netherlands has said the government is still determining its position on the US campaign and has come under criticism from a retired navy admiral for that silence. Officials have said that the broader campaign in the Caribbean is a “national act” from the United States, but it has not addressed the risks of ongoing cooperation with the US on counternarcotics interdictions. When discussing the US relationship more generally, the head of the Dutch intelligence agency has said publicly that the Netherlands are limiting the intelligence they share with the Trump administration, noting that they “are very alert to the politicization of intelligence and to human rights violations.”
On December 2, when asked about the strikes, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper stated that the UK “will always support international law” without addressing the legality of the reported US operations and what specific steps it is taking to ensure UK intelligence or other assistance is not used to carry out or assist in a violation of international law. On December 3, Minister Hamish Falconer, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State, stated that “questions about United States military action in the Caribbean and Pacific are questions for the US” and said that the UK “has not been involved in strikes.” While media accounts suggested that the UK had also stopped some intelligence sharing, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has denied the reports as a “fake story.” When asked, Cooper said: “As you know, we don’t comment on the detail of intelligence matters but I think you will probably have seen the US Secretary of State has dismissed some of the reports that there have been.”
After their October summit, CARICOM, with Trinidad and Tobago dissenting, issued a statement reiterating a “commitment to fighting narcotrafficking and the illegal trade in small arms and light weapons which adversely affect the Region,” while also underscoring that “efforts to overcome these challenges should be through ongoing international cooperation and within international law.”
Following their November summit, the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States’ joint statement did not specifically refer to the strikes, although it did refer to how “CELAC member States emphasized their national positions regarding the situation in the Caribbean and the Pacific” and more generally reiterated “the importance of international cooperation, mutual respect, and full compliance with international law, including in combatting transnational organized crime and drug trafficking.”
In September, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, a group of countries that participate in the Political Council of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace criticized the strikes. The members include Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada. Their declaration said that “the extrajudicial killings confessed to by the United States government itself, perpetrated in the Caribbean Sea… constitute a flagrant violation of fundamental human rights and seek to transform a region of peace into an area of confrontation and militarization.”
