Beginning on Sept. 2, 2025, the United States military has carried out a series of unprecedented strikes against vessels suspected of narcotics trafficking in the Caribbean, destroying the vessels and reportedly killing all people on board. The Trump administration has said more such strikes will follow, and, since early October, has claimed it is in a non-international armed conflict with unspecified drug cartels. In this collection, experts analyze the legality of the strikes under domestic and international law, the ways in which suspected narcotics trafficking at sea is normally addressed by the U.S. government and how these strikes deviate from that practice, the consequences for when and how the president may unilaterally order the military to employ lethal force, the applicability of domestic criminal laws prohibiting murder and international human rights law prohibiting extrajudicial killing, and a range of related issues.
- Brian Finucane, Rebecca Ingber, Rachel Goldbrenner, Tess Bridgeman, The Just Security Podcast: Murder on the High Seas Part II — What We Know about U.S. Vessel Strikes One Month In (October 7, 2025)
- Mary B. McCord and Tess Bridgeman, What the Senate Judiciary Committee Should Ask A.G. Bondi on Drug Cartel Strikes (Oct. 3, 2025)
- Marty Lederman, Legal Flaws in the Trump Administration’s Notice to Congress on “Armed Conflict” with Drug Cartels (Oct. 3, 2025)
- Daniel Maurer, US Servicemembers’ Exposure to Criminal Liability for Lethal Strikes on Narcoterrorists (September 24, 2025)
- Ben Saul, The United States’ Dirty War on “Narco Terrorism” (September 22, 2025)
- Annie Shiel, John Ramming Chappell, Priyanka Motaparthy, Wells Dixon and Daphne Eviatar, Murder by Drone: The Legal and Moral Stakes of the Caribbean Strikes (September 17, 2025)
- Brian Finucane, Asserting a License to Kill: Why the Caribbean Strike is a Dangerous Departure from the “War on Terror (September 15, 2025)
- Marty Lederman, The Many Ways in Which the September 2 Caribbean Strike was Unlawful … and the Grave Line the Military Has Crossed (September 10, 2025)
- Michael Schmitt, Striking Drug Cartels Under the Jus ad Bellum and Law of Armed Conflict (September 10, 2025)
- Tess Bridgeman, Brian Finucane, Rebecca Ingber The Just Security Podcast: Murder on the High Seas? What You Need to Know about the U.S. Strike on the Caribbean Vessel (September 9, 2025, also available on YouTube)
- Mark Nevitt, Using Labels, Not Law, to Justify Lethal Force: Inside the Venezuelan Boat Strike (September 5, 2025)
- Brian Finucane, Legal Issues Raised by a Lethal U.S. Military Attack in the Caribbean (September 3, 2025)
