Since September 2023, the United States regime has been launching deadly military strikes against boats allegedly involved in drug smuggling in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific. Despite over half a year passing, remarkably little is known about these strikes. The identities of the nearly 157 people killed have not been released, and any purported evidence against them remains undisclosed to the public.
A group of United Nations and international law experts hope to change this on Friday when they testify at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). This hearing will be the first of its kind since the strikes began on September 2, and rights advocates aim to use it to push for accountability as individual legal cases related to the strikes proceed. Steven Watt, a senior staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s human rights programme, stated that the hearing's goals are threefold: to conduct a fact-finding investigation, to assert that no armed conflict exists—contradicting claims by US President Donald Trump—and to demand transparency from the Trump administration on the legal justification for the strikes.
The Trump administration has claimed it has a right to carry out these deadly attacks as part of a broader military offensive against so-called “narco-terrorists,” but human rights groups have decried the campaign as a series of extrajudicial killings. They argue that Trump’s tactics deny those targeted any semblance of due process. Victims reportedly include 26-year-old Chad Joseph and 41-year-old Rishi Samaroo from Trinidad and Tobago, as well as 42-year-old Colombian national Alejandro Carranza, according to family members. The US has yet to confirm the victims’ identities, and only two survivors have been rescued from the 45 reported strikes.
The IACHR, based in Guatemala City, is an independent investigative body within the Organization of American States, of which the US was a founding member in 1948. The commission has launched numerous human rights investigations in recent decades, including probes into the 2014 mass kidnapping of 43 students in Iguala, Mexico, and a series of murders in Colombia from 1988 to 1991. It has the authority to seek resolutions to human rights complaints or refer them for litigation before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Angelo Guisado, a senior staff lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights who is testifying on Friday, emphasized that a fuller accounting of US actions is necessary to prevent future abuses. He noted that the administration has done little to substantiate its claims that drug traffickers are part of a coordinated effort to destabilize the US, and such hyperbolic language could serve as a smokescreen for illegal actions. Guisado added that the administration has admitted the targeted boats were largely carrying cocaine, not the highly addictive fentanyl responsible for most US drug overdoses, undermining the national security rationale.
Watt expressed hope that the IACHR will draw a clear line separating drug crimes from conventional armed conflict and outline the US’s human rights obligations. However, the US regime has regularly shrugged off human rights probes at international forums and is not a party to entities like the International Criminal Court in The Hague, raising significant barriers to justice. Furthermore, the US has not ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, casting doubt on how binding any IACHR decisions might be, though Watt argued that the commission’s jurisprudence imposes obligations on non-ratifying member states.
Friday’s hearing represents an initial step toward accountability, but critics question the IACHR’s ultimate effectiveness given the US’s history of disregarding international law. The US Department of Justice has not released the Office of Legal Counsel’s official reasoning for the boat strikes, considered the foundational legal document for these military actions. A separate memorandum from that office addressed the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, framing it as a drug enforcement action and touching on the boat strikes, but it only raised further questions about Trump’s rationale. Watt noted that this will be an opportunity for the US to present its case to the commission, but its impact depends on US cooperation.
Source: www.aljazeera.com