Murdering people for "committing" a nonviolent crime in international waters that still wouldn't qualify for capital punishment if it was committed on US soil. It wouldn't matter if they provided mountains of evidence, it would still be wrong, and yet they are providing zero evidence. We're just openly committing war crimes knowing that no one can really stop it.

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bawolff 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Murdering people for "committing" a nonviolent crime in international waters

If that is the rationale usa used, then yes it would be an obvious war crime. You can't shoot people in war because they are guilty of a crime unless they can legitamently be targeted for some other reason.

I think USA is probably going to try and spin it as they are members of an armed group USA is in an armed conflict with, and they were targeted on that basis and not because of any particular crime any particular person comitted.

How convincing that is is debatable [ianal but it sounds pretty unconvincing to me], and you of course still have the problem of how exactly the US can claim self-defense against a foreign drug cartel.

	▲	nickff 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Could you please clarify this statement for me: >”You can't shoot people in war because they are guilty of a crime unless they can legitamently be targeted for some other reason.” From what I understand (and I am no expert), in a war, the default is that you can shoot someone if you believe them to be acting in a manner which is against your side’s interests (and have not surrendered while satisfying certain conditions).

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gpm 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is it war crimes when there's no war? Would actually be curious to learn if the answer is yes.

Naively it seems like old fashioned murder without any special qualifier. I guess it could be both too?

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bawolff 3 hours ago | parent [-]

War crimes require an armed conflict but not a "war". Note that declerations of war no longer really have meaning in international law and dont affect anything whether they are given or not.

Armed conflict can be either international (e.g. between two countries) or non-international (e.g. you are atacking a non-state group. For example ISIS. However note that attacking a non-state group on the territory of a different state without permission of that state makes it be both.). War crimes apply to both types but the rules are slightly different between the two.

Keep in mind also that people often colloquial use "war crimes" to mean any international crime, but technically its only one type. Crimes against humanity and genocide are technically not war crimes but a different category. They generally do not require an armed conflict (although often when they do happen its related to sone sort of armed conflict)

Anyways this whole thing probably counts an armed conflict. I think at the least its a non-international armed conflict with the drug cartel. Attacking boats is usually an act of war even if they are in international waters, which might make it an international armed conflict with venuzula as well if the boats are connected to it (but the rules related to that im not really clear on and is a bit beyond my knoeledge).

[IANAL]

	▲	nickff 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The possibility of this being an ‘act of war’ does seem very interesting, but I’m not sure Venezuela could claim it in this circumstance, as the vessels do not appear to be ‘flagged’. I would be interested to learn what the status of unflagged vessels is in international law, and I suspect there must be law on the subject, as pirates were typically unflagged.