So…we’re just bombing boats now?

This morning I woke to news of the fourth attack on a Venezuelan boat off the Caribbean coast. President Trump and Pete Hegseth — his Secretary of War (previously called Secretary of Defense) — have defended and even boasted about these strikes. Hegseth posted on X: “The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics — headed to America to poison our people. Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route. These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”

President Trump claimed the boat in this fourth attack carried enough drugs to “kill 25,000 to 50,000 people.” That is a wild assertion with no evidence offered to support it.

What are the moral implications?

The moral implications of this kind of action are grave. The risk of serious error is high, and without evidence from the administration it is difficult to hold anyone accountable. That is precisely why we have the rule of law: to prevent catastrophic mistakes with severe consequences. To date we have no clear understanding of exactly what was on these boats or who was aboard.

Yes, these high-speed “go-fast” vessels can pose a real threat. They can travel faster than some law enforcement and military craft, carry large quantities of contraband hidden below deck, and mix easily with ordinary maritime traffic. But those very characteristics are why simply blowing up boats on the open ocean is dangerous. Not every small vessel is a drug-running boat.

Even if a vessel is carrying drugs, is it acceptable to kill everyone aboard with a drone strike? It is rarely cartel leaders who travel in these boats; more often they are low-level couriers or, worse, people coerced or trafficked into service. Do we know whether those aboard were willing participants or victims? This uncertainty is precisely why we rely on legal processes. The rule of law is imperfect, but it is vastly preferable to a world in which authoritarian leaders decide who lives and who dies.

If we accept that organizing society around justice and legal protections is superior, we must ask whether these strikes are lawful.

What international laws govern this?

Start with the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). These foundational documents were created after World War II to prevent the kinds of abuses that had ravaged the world and to establish an international legal order.

Under the UN Charter, acts of aggression against another state are prohibited except in cases of self-defense or with Security Council authorization. Self-defense has strict requirements: an armed attack must have occurred first, and any response must be necessary and proportionate. It is hard to see how the exception for self-defense legitimately applies here. A separate legal question is whether bombing a privately owned vessel that flies a nation’s flag constitutes an attack against that state itself.

The UDHR is the starting point for global human-rights protections. Article 3 guarantees the right to life, liberty, and personal security; extrajudicial killings are widely regarded as violating this right. Extrajudicial killings are deliberate, unlawful killings carried out without judicial process, often by state actors — and they violate international human-rights norms.

From these foundational norms alone, the bombardment of civilian vessels appears to violate international law and the post–WWII human-rights framework.

We should also consider the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which governs conduct on the high seas. UNCLOS enshrines freedom of navigation and generally prohibits attacks on vessels in international waters. It does allow narrow exceptions — combating piracy, self-defense after an armed attack, continuous hot pursuit that began in territorial waters, and actions against slave trading — but none of those seem to apply here. A critical caveat: the United States has not ratified UNCLOS, though it generally treats many of its provisions as customary international law.

So if these strikes contravene international law, what justification is the U.S. offering?

A brief chronology and legal rationale

There have been four reported attacks. The first, on or about September 1, killed 11 people aboard a small, fast vessel. President Trump announced the strike on September 2 and said the boat was a drug-smuggling vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TDA), a Venezuelan gang. He claimed the vessel was headed to the United States; later the State Department indicated it was likely bound for Trinidad. Notably, a small smuggling boat carrying 11 people would be unusual, and the boat’s origin is in a region known for both drug smuggling and human trafficking — suggesting some passengers could have been victims of trafficking rather than willing smugglers.

On September 4, Trump sent a letter to Senate leadership stating the strikes were “consistent with the War Powers Resolution” and were taken under his Article II authority as President. The administration framed its action as self-defense against “extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels” that have paramilitary-like capabilities and operate from territories where local states are “unable or unwilling” to act. That letter attempted to fit the strikes into a military framework.

But this legal posture is dubious. International Humanitarian Law (IHL), or the law of armed conflict, applies only when the United States is engaged in an armed conflict. IHL recognizes two categories: international armed conflict (between states) and non-international armed conflict (between a state and non-state armed groups, or among non-state groups). For the U.S. to claim a non-international armed conflict against a cartel, that cartel would have to be organized and engaged in sustained, intense hostilities against the U.S. The available facts do not support that threshold. If Venezuela were directing the TDA, an international armed conflict might be arguable; but U.S. intelligence has reportedly found no evidence that Venezuela controls TDA. Thus, the conditions for applying IHL appear absent.

After the second strike on September 15, the administration broadened its legal argument. A post-strike report to Congress framed cartel drug trafficking as constituting an “armed attack” because these drugs kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. The report also labeled the individuals killed as “unlawful combatants,” a term used during the post-9/11 era to deny Geneva Convention protections to certain targets. Calling those aboard these vessels “unlawful combatants” to justify summary attacks is legally and factually dubious. The term is not found in the Geneva Conventions and carries significant legal consequences — indefinite detention, reduced legal protections, and denial of fair trial rights. To categorize ordinary drug smugglers or possibly trafficked persons as participants in armed conflict is a stretch that lacks evidentiary support.

Why this matters

International law is imperfect, but adhering to it — and adapting it thoughtfully — protects everyone. The principle of “innocent until proven guilty” means some guilty actors may evade punishment. That trade-off is preferable to a world where governments can execute people without due process. Imagine being executed in public because a powerful official decided you posed a threat without trial. That is not a hypothetical dystopia; it is the logical endpoint of normalizing extrajudicial killings.

So far, Congress has not authorized the use of military force against drug cartels, and there is no clear legal precedent or framework that justifies these strikes. The nameless people killed in the Caribbean are easy to forget — because they are faceless to us and likely involved in illegal activity, some may argue they don’t deserve second thought. But they do. Morality and law both demand we question summary executions carried out from above.

We must not let legal frameworks erode

If we allow governments to bypass legal norms, we trade universal protections for the prerogatives of the powerful. Every time the rule of law is weakened, the world inches closer to a lawless and more dangerous place — not only for smugglers or traffickers, but for refugees, lawful businesspeople, tourists, and eventually ordinary citizens everywhere.

Do we simply allow drug smuggling to continue?

No. I do not advocate inaction. The growing capabilities and reach of criminal organizations require robust responses: international cooperation, improved governance, stronger institutions, coordinated law enforcement, and support for multilateral bodies such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. We must fight illegal drug trafficking and the associated crimes. But extrajudicial killings on the high seas are not the answer. That path endangers the protections that keep us all safer.