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A September 2026 briefing note by UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul found reasonable grounds to believe that the reported 68 attacks killing 223 people constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law. The note detailed how the United States military has struck at least 68 vessels in international waters since 2 September 2025 on the basis that the boats were trafficking drugs on behalf of groups designated as terrorist organisations under US law. The experts rejected the US government’s legal claims justifying the attacks, stating that drug cartels and gangs are not carrying out armed attacks against the United States and therefore there is no right of self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. They added that drug trafficking is a law enforcement matter governed by international human rights law on the use of force, and calling it war does not make it one.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has demanded an end to the unlawful killings at sea after the one-year death toll reached 223, according to its September 2026 statement. Human Rights Watch reported that the Trump administration has conducted 69 unlawful strikes under Operation Southern Spear, publicising many through social media videos while facing no accountability. The group documented at least 227 deaths by early September 2026, including incidents as recent as late August, and called for a full accounting of the operations together with justice for the victims and their families. UN experts further warned that the attacks may also constitute crimes against maritime safety, giving other countries jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute.
US officials have maintained that the strikes target narco-terrorists positively identified through intelligence as posing threats to national security. The Pentagon has released footage of the operations, which a New York Times analysis tracked as including 68 strikes with 227 killed by August 2026. However, the UN assessment found that no armed conflict exists with the United States under international humanitarian law since there is no military combat between two sides, describing the actions as unilateral killings without legal basis or process.
The US Coast Guard has continued parallel traditional interdiction operations in the same regions, according to its fiscal year reports and a January 2026 Government Accountability Office review. The service seized 106.3 metric tons of cocaine in fiscal 2024 and disrupted drug runs in 91 out of 125 boat interdictions that year while generally avoiding lethal force, with only one reported fatal shooting of a suspect in the past five years. The GAO report noted that the Coast Guard failed to meet its primary drug interdiction targets from fiscal years 2015 through 2024, partly because it redirected assets to address record maritime migration from Haiti and Cuba that peaked above 34,000 individuals annually in 2022 and 2023.
A March 2026 hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights heard expert testimony that the Pentagon’s campaign of blowing up 45 small vessels and killing at least 157 people in its first six months was illegal under international and US domestic law. The New York Times documented monthly variations in the strikes, with peaks of 14 in December 2025 and eight in both February and April 2026. UN experts have been in contact with the US government regarding these matters and have called for all alleged violations of the right to life to be investigated promptly, effectively, thoroughly, independently, impartially and transparently.
Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer has criticised aspects of US counter-narcotics practices for risking impunity in line with broader concerns raised by current rapporteurs Morris Tidball-Binz and Ben Saul. The UN briefing noted that at least three additional vessels disappeared in suspicious circumstances without US claims of responsibility, including an Ecuadoran fishing boat that lost eight of 10 crew members. The experts stated that all perpetrators, including those in military and civilian chains of command, must be held accountable, with victims and their families entitled to full reparation including compensation and guarantees that such killings will not recur.
