Greater than 60 individuals have reportedly been killed within the persevering with collection of assaults since early September “in circumstances that discover no justification in worldwide regulation,” Volker Türk mentioned in a press release.
He urged the US to halt its “unacceptable” operations and take measures to stop the “extrajudicial killing of individuals aboard these boats, regardless of the legal conduct alleged in opposition to them.”
Past the regulation
The USA has defended the operations as a part of its ongoing efforts to fight drug trafficking and terrorism, asserting that they fall throughout the framework of worldwide humanitarian regulation.
Mr. Türk rejected that argument, stressing that countering illicit drug trafficking is a law-enforcement matter, ruled by cautious limits on deadly drive set out in worldwide human rights regulation.
He emphasised that the intentional use of deadly drive is lawful solely as a final resort when people pose an imminent risk to life.
Name for investigations
“Based mostly on the very sparse data offered publicly by the US authorities, not one of the people on the focused boats appeared to pose an imminent risk to the lives of others or in any other case justified using deadly armed drive in opposition to them underneath worldwide regulation,” Mr. Türk mentioned.
The Excessive Commissioner referred to as for immediate, impartial and clear investigations into the reported assaults.
Whereas acknowledging the intense challenges posed by drug trafficking, Mr. Türk urged the US to make sure that all counter-narcotics operations respect worldwide regulation, together with the treaties to which it’s get together.
“The USA ought to examine and, if mandatory, prosecute and punish people accused of significant crimes in accordance with the elemental rule-of-law rules of due course of and honest trial, for which the US has lengthy stood,” he concluded.
