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A United Nations human rights expert says the US strikes on boats suspected of carrying drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific are illegal and may amount to crimes against humanity.

Getting into it: The report, from UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Ben Saul, counted 68 strikes on vessels in international waters between September 2025 and August 2026 that killed 223 people, though the campaign has continued since. Saul, who holds the chair of international law at the University of Sydney, rejected the Trump administration’s argument that the strikes are self-defense in an armed conflict with narco-terrorists, writing that none of the boats launched an armed attack on the US and that drug trafficking does not clear that bar. He also said there is no evidence that groups like Tren de Aragua were fighting on behalf of Venezuela’s government.

“The United States military attacks are… contrary to international law, violate the human right to life, and plausibly constitute crimes against humanity,” Saul wrote. He added, “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the reported 68 attacks that killed 223 people constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law.”

The report says lethal force was not a last resort, since boarding and intercepting the boats was an option Secretary of State Marco Rubio has acknowledged is feasible. That, the report says, puts the strikes in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Saul wants the US to open an investigation, charge the people behind the strikes all the way up to the political and military leaders who gave the orders, and compensate the families of those killed.

Saul also questioned whether the campaign is working. Cocaine seizures at the US border have held steady, he noted, and most of the region’s cocaine moves through container ships that rarely get inspected rather than the small boats being hit. He estimated the operation had cost $4.7 billion by mid-2026 and argued that killing low-level suspects may actually set back efforts to dismantle the networks and prosecute their leaders.

This all comes as the Trump administration has defended the campaign as self-defense against narco-terrorists it says the US is at war with, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying the goal is removing “narco-terrorists from our hemisphere” and protecting the US from “the drugs that are killing our people.” Trump has claimed the strikes have cut off 97% of the illegal drugs smuggled into the country by sea, but the numbers so far show cocaine is still coming in at the same rate.