UN special rapporteur Ben Saul found reasonable grounds to believe that 68 US strikes on boats in international waters between September 2025 and August 2026, which killed at least 223 people, constituted crimes against humanity. His report says drug trafficking does not amount to an armed attack, rejecting Washington's self-defence rationale and intensifying scrutiny of the military campaign's legality.
Ben Saul, the UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur who monitors human rights in counterterrorism, issued an assessment of US boat strikes in international waters. He reported 68 attacks between September 2025 and August 2026 that killed at least 223 people. Saul found reasonable grounds to believe that the strikes constituted the crime against humanity of murder.[1], [2]
The US administration describes the campaign as self-defence against 'narco-terrorists'. Saul rejected that rationale because drug trafficking does not constitute an armed attack on the United States and those aboard the vessels had not launched such an attack. Even assumed membership in a criminal group would not trigger a state's right of self-defence under that analysis. He found the use of military force incompatible with the right to life.[1], [2]
Saul said less-lethal tools such as maritime interception were available instead of destroying suspected vessels with military strikes. He also concluded that international maritime law does not authorise offensive targeting of boats alleged to carry drugs. Under that assessment, even flag-state consent would not supply a legal basis without an imminent lethal threat or another valid ground for self-defence.[1], [2]
