When ‘narcoterrorism’ justifies abuse – Civil society submission to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

The International Drug Policy Consortium, Elementa DDHH and the Center for Legal and Social Studies welcome the upcoming report of the High Commissioner on terrorism and human rights, pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolution 57/11.

Since September 2025, the USA has killed at least 152 people in military strikes on boats suspected of what it described as “narcoterrorism”, in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. So far, no independent investigation has been carried out, and reparation measures have been offered to the victims.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN human rights experts have made it clear that these strikes constituted extrajudicial killings, and that they contravened international humanitarian and human rights law.

The President of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has also publicly stated that the extrajudicial targeting of people suspected of drug trafficking ‘cannot be justified under international law and the drug conventions’.

In January 2026, the USA also carried out a military raid within the territory of Venezuela to capture President Nicolas Maduro, taking him to New York to face drug trafficking charges. Again, this operation is contrary to international law and the UN drug control treaties more specifically, which require that drug control operations are conducted in full respect of sovereign equality and territorial integrity of States.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, in his latest report A/HRC/61/52 ‘Defining terrorism to respect and protect human rights’, recognised the ‘Grave recent abuses of counter-terrorism laws’ against suspected drug cartels and gangs. In an intervention on 9 December 2025, the Special Rapporteur condemned the attacks as violations of international law, including human rights obligations, the international law of the sea and State sovereignty. He also clarified that, while there may be links between some terrorist organisations and organised crime groups, drug trafficking does not automatically equate to a terrorist act.

As explained by the Special Rapporteur, while drug trafficking is one of the most common organised crimes committed by terrorist groups to finance their operations, the activities of organised crime groups rarely qualify as terrorism. The key legal distinction is the fact that the Convention on Transnational Organised Crime defines organised crime as essentially crimes for “a financial or other material benefit”. In contrast, terrorism is political or ideological violence. Each type of crime requires a customised legal framework to ensure that inappropriate powers and tools are not misused when not justified.

The use of the term “narcoterrorism” is not new. In 1983, the Peruvian President Fernando Belaúnde Terry had used this term to describe attacks by insurgents against police involved in forced crop eradication in coca-growing regions. The term was then utilised to frame insurgent violence and drug trafficking as a single security threat, marking the beginning of tighter, more violent responses from the government in cultivation areas. More recently, in 2024, Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa labelled 22 criminal organisations as “narcoterrorist” groups, and invoked a state of exception with increased military presence, resulting in a dramatic escalation of violence and homicides. Since 2025, various countries, including Argentina, Canada, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru have labelled various criminal factions and gangs as “narcoterrorist organisations”.

Extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary killings have been a constant for decades in drug control efforts, leading to thousands of deaths and disappearances in countries like Bangladesh, Colombia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Thailand. The US Government has a long track record of funding and supporting law enforcement operations in neighbouring Latin American countries that have had severely negative human rights impacts, including through the Merida Initiative (México) and Plan Colombia, as well through international aid used to train and shape drug law enforcement abroad.

The US Government’s commitment to continue with this approach, under the label of combatting “narcoterrorism”, is deeply worrying and raises concerns that other governments will embrace similar escalations in the use of lethal force in drug control operations, multiplying the occurrence of such attacks, and eroding international law and norms.

In this context, we call on the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in his upcoming report, to clarify that:

• Drug trafficking should not be conflated with terrorism.
• Drug control operations must be conducted in compliance with international law, including international human rights obligations.
• Extrajudicial and military targeting of people suspected of drug trafficking cannot be justified under international law and the drug control conventions.
• Drug control operations must respect the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, and non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other States (see Article 2.2 of the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances).
• The US and other actions, committed in the name of “narcoterrorism” should be subjected to immediate independent, transparent investigations, and result in reparation measures for the victims.