UN Expert: 'War on Narco-Terrorism' Fuels Unlawful Killings

On October 22, the United Nations' leading expert on counter-terrorism and human rights told journalists in New York that a new war on narco-terrorism is fuelling unlawful killings across the Americas, and he singled out United States military strikes on small boats for some of the harshest criticism the campaign has yet received. Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, said about 15 countries have now listed 39 drug-trafficking groups as terrorist organizations, a wave of designations he said is being used to justify military force against organized crime. The central problem, Saul told the press, is that organized crime and terrorism are being governed by the same legal playbook when international standards say they should be treated as separate phenomena.

Saul was blunt about what the war on narco-terrorism has produced. According to information cited by the Special Rapporteur, the United States has killed at least 239 people in 71 military strikes on civilian vessels at sea over the past year, operations the US says were carried out to stop narcotics trafficking. Saul said these killings have no justification under international law. "These criminal groups have not launched a military armed attack on the United States," he told journalists, which is why Washington's claim of national self-defense does not hold. The strikes, he said, may constitute crimes against humanity, and he called for those who ordered and carried them out to be held accountable.

Terrorist labels are unlocking military power

At the heart of Saul's warning is a legal distinction. Under international standards, terrorism means politically or ideologically motivated violence, while organized criminal violence is defined by a UN treaty as crime committed for profit or material gain, Saul explained. Keeping those two regimes separate matters because counter-terrorism powers are meant to be limited and applied to political violence, while a different set of tools exists for organized crime. When governments blur the line, they unlock exceptional powers designed for terrorism and aim them at a completely different problem.

That blurring is now widespread in the war on narco-terrorism, Saul said. He connected it to the Shield of the Americas initiative, which brings together 19 states, and to the growing practice of designating cartels and gangs as terrorist organizations. The designation has concrete legal consequences, according to the Special Rapporteur's report. It can trigger asset freezes, travel bans, summary deportations and the refoulement of migrants, while overbroad offences around terrorist financing and material support can land on humanitarian workers, businesses, civil society groups and vulnerable communities that have nothing to do with drugs. Militarized responses to the war on narco-terrorism have also produced arbitrary killings, torture, enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention, he said, while prolonged states of emergency have restricted freedom of movement, association, expression and peaceful assembly, with Indigenous communities among those affected.

A broader alarm at the United Nations

Saul's statement came the day after the UN General Assembly's Third Committee heard experts raise related warnings. UN meetings coverage shows that the committee's October 21 session sounded the alarm over the war on narco-terrorism, mass displacement, separated migrant families and attacks on judicial independence. According to our earlier reporting, a UN human rights session earlier this month also renewed the probe into atrocities in Sudan, and Europe just awarded its Sakharov Prize to the International Criminal Court, two more signals that international justice institutions are under unusual strain. Read more: Inside the UN Human Rights Session That Renewed the Sudan Probe, The ICC Sakharov Prize: Europe Backs the Court and The Greece Migrant Trial That Could Jail Activists for 20 Years.

A second UN expert sharpened the warning about lethal force. Morris Tidball-Binz, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has said the US is drifting toward a shoot-to-kill posture, with reports of follow-up strikes killing survivors of the boat attacks. "International law does not allow states to kill based on labels, appearances, or allegations," Tidball-Binz said, adding that lethal force outside active armed conflict may be used only as a last resort to protect life. The concern extends beyond the war on narco-terrorism at sea, he said, pointing to domestic immigration enforcement and advanced surveillance and strike technology that let operators pull the trigger without physical risk.

Saul wants drugs treated as a crime and health problem

The report accompanying Saul's statement does not argue that drug trafficking should be left alone. Organized drug violence and drug misuse threaten the rights to life, personal security and health, Saul stressed, and states should take every lawful measure to address them. But he argued that decades of heavily securitized responses to the war on narco-terrorism in the Americas have frequently failed to reduce trafficking and have often increased violence. Instead of military strikes, he urged states to strengthen organized-crime frameworks, law enforcement and intelligence capacity, financial investigations, anti-corruption measures and international cooperation, alongside tighter controls on military-grade firearms.

Saul also went further on drug policy itself. He called for prevention, education, public health and harm reduction to sit at the center of the response, for action on poverty reduction, development, accessible public services and more responsive governance to cut the incentives to join criminal groups, and even for the legalization of drugs to undercut criminal profits. Saul's argument is that the war on narco-terrorism applies war powers to a law enforcement problem, and that people are dying because of the miscategorization. According to the National Human Rights Commission of Lebanon, which republished the OHCHR statement, the report urges states to keep counter-terrorism and organized-crime law clearly separated. The UN's audiovisual library carries Saul's full press remarks.