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In­ter­na­tion­al law ex­perts are ques­tion­ing the le­gal ad­vice and its in­ter­pre­ta­tion that led At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to con­clude that the re­cent US strikes on al­leged drug boats in the Caribbean did not vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al law.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas last Wednes­day, Je­re­mie de­fend­ed the le­gal­i­ty of the strikes, stat­ing they were “con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al law.”

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, how­ev­er, US-based law con­sul­tant John C Knech­tle says while he had not seen the as­sess­ments the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al were re­ly­ing on, mil­i­tary force against civil­ians, in­clud­ing al­leged drug traf­fick­ers, is pro­hib­it­ed un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law. He not­ed that coun­ter­ing nar­cotics is pri­mar­i­ly a law en­force­ment mat­ter gov­erned by crim­i­nal laws rather than the law of armed con­flict.