Category: International

Since September 2, 2025, the U.S. military has killed at least 57 civilians in international waters, in strikes that international law and human rights authorities have condemned as illegal.¹ Evidence is mounting that demonstrates Canada’s extensive involvement in these U.S.-led military operations.^{2 3} 

At a basic level, prohibitionist drug policy has been increasingly discredited for its failure to stop the use of drugs and its success in producing harms and suffering. It undermines both human rights and effective public health responses, at home and abroad.⁴ Instead of stemming the flow of unregulated drugs, prohibition has driven drug production and trade underground, strengthened organized crime, disproportionately harmed already-marginalized communities, accelerated environmental degradation, and contributed to instability, violence and human rights abuses abroad, while fueling a toxic unregulated drug crisis at home.⁵⁶⁷⁸ 

The United States’ extrajudicial killing campaign is a dangerous escalation of prohibitionist policy, and by falling in line and participating, Canada is abandoning our stated values and risking our international credibility. There is nothing to be gained from attempts to appease the current American president: Canada’s deference to the whims of President Trump and continued complicity in these illegal attacks will only drive harm.  

Take action: demand accountability of our elected leaders. Urge your MP to

• close the arms export loophole
• support Bill C-233, and
• suspend Canada’s role in Operation CARIBBE. 

The Situation 

On September 2, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. military had carried out an airstrike on a vessel in the Caribbean, claiming the boat was being used by the Tren de Aragua cartel to smuggle drugs from Venezuela.⁹ Since then, at least nine more strikes have targeted civilian boats in international waters in both the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. The death toll now stands at a minimum of 57 people. The Trump Administration has provided no evidence to support their claims of drug trafficking.¹⁰¹¹¹² 

While the Trump administration frames these attacks as part of a military campaign against drug trafficking, Human Rights Watch has categorically labeled them extrajudicial executions in violation of international law and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).¹³ Experts note Trump’s flimsy justification may not be about drugs at all, but rather cover for political interference and regime change in Venezuela.¹⁴ 

To understand why these strikes are illegal, it’s important to understand that according to legal experts, this situation does not constitute the legal use of military force under international law.¹⁵ No armed conflict exists between the United States and states Trump has referenced, like Colombia or Venezuela, nor between the U.S. and the alleged criminal groups involved. The use of lethal force against civilians at sea constitutes a breach of the right to life under Article 6 of the ICCPR.¹⁶  

These strikes are the illegal use of military force targeting civilians in international waters, with neither due process nor judicial oversight. According to human rights law, “officials engaging in law enforcement, including military personnel, must seek to minimize injury and preserve human life. They may use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect against an imminent threat of death or serious injury.”¹⁷ Under both international and Canadian law, when someone is accused of breaking the law, they are entitled to be treated according to what in Canada is usually called the principles of fundamental justice, and in some jurisdictions called due process. This includes basic protections like being presumed innocent, facing evidence in a fair trial, and having the chance to appeal.  

The American Civil Liberties Union stated plainly: “Trump’s boat strikes are killing potentially innocent civilians. They must be stopped.”¹⁸

Canada’s Involvement 

Evidence demonstrating Canada’s complicity in illegal U.S. strikes is mounting. Canada participates in Operation CARIBBE, described by the Department of National Defence as “Canada’s contribution to U.S.-led enhanced counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.”¹⁹ Under CARIBBE, which began in 2006 and expanded through a 2010 Memorandum of Understanding, Canadian Armed Forces ships and aircraft deploy to provide intelligence, surveillance, logistical support, and equipment that enable U.S. military operations. 

The cost? Over $11 million annually in recent fiscal years.²⁰ 

While Canada’s Department of National Defence insists that its activities are “separate and distinct” from the U.S. air strikes, such distinctions are meaningless without independent oversight. Evidence indicates that Canada’s participation provides the surveillance infrastructure that makes these strikes possible. 

More damning still, Canadian technology has been directly linked to the strikes. According to in-depth research by Project Ploughshares and independently verified by CBC, Canadian-made sensors likely helped identify targets for recent U.S. strikes near Venezuela.²¹²² By providing logistical support, intelligence, surveillance, and equipment, Canada is complicit in these extrajudicial killings, regardless of whether it is a Canadian citizen who ultimately fires the weapon. 

The Arms Export Loophole: Legal Cover for Illegal Acts 

Canada joined the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in 2019, which legally obligates us to ensure that exports of military goods do not contribute to violations of international law.²³ Yet Canada continues to exempt the United States from export controls under the Export and Import Permits Act, allowing Canadian-made weapons components to enter U.S. supply chains largely unchecked.²⁴ 

According to Project Ploughshares, Canadian components have been found in U.S. weapons systems deployed in Gaza, Yemen—and now in the illegal US military strikes on boats in the Caribbean.²⁵ 

General Export Permit No. 47 (GEP-47) streamlines shipments of ATT-controlled items to the United States, where parts can be built into weapons and re-exported with far less Canadian visibility and scrutiny.²⁶ 

While Canada claims to champion human rights and a public health approach to drug policy, our export regime is actively enabling use of military force against civilians and ensuring plausible deniability rather than accountability. 

MP Jenny Kwan’s private member’s bill, Bill C-233, would close this loophole by removing country exemptions, requiring end-use certificates, and mandating annual reporting to Parliament on ATT compliance.²⁷ The bill represents a critical step toward ensuring Canada doesn’t enable human rights violations abroad. 

Drug Policy Must Uphold Human Rights Law 

The international legal framework is unambiguous. The UN Human Rights Council’s Resolution 60/26, adopted by consensus in 2025 establishes human rights—not criminalization—as the core framework for international drug cooperation.²⁸²⁹ The resolution calls on states to integrate harm reduction into public-health policy, respect Indigenous rights, address environmental harms, and protect civil-society actors working on drug reform. 

This resolution affirms that drug policy belongs firmly within the human rights system, rather than solely within enforcement bodies like the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Yet Canada has not fully endorsed or implemented this shift, despite being bound by international human rights treaties including the ICCPR and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). 

Similarly, the August 2023 report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Human rights challenges in addressing and countering all aspects of the world drug problem,” calls on member states to consider responsible regulation of drug markets—a stark departure from the militarized international approach Canada is currently supporting.³⁰ 

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health has been equally clear: harm reduction must be central to drug policy, and punitive enforcement approaches that violate the right to health are incompatible with international law.³¹ 

The Hypocrisy at Home 

The contradiction is stark. At home, the federal government touts a public health approach to drugs. In practice, law enforcement and militarization dominate spending.³² In 2025, in failed attempts to appease Trump, Ottawa rolled out a $1.3-billion border plan, appointed a federal “Fentanyl Czar,” and advanced aggressive border laws—moves that significantly increase spending toward enforcement, all while communities still lack stable funding for housing, harm-reduction services, and treatment.³³ 

Meanwhile, the toxic unregulated drug crisis continues to kill thousands of Canadians each year.³⁴ Every dollar spent on law enforcement and illegal military strikes is a dollar not spent on the things communities need: overdose prevention, responsible regulation, voluntary treatment on demand, and housing—proven interventions explicitly recommended by UN human rights guidance. 

This reflects the global pattern: prohibition fails to reduce drug use but succeeds in driving production underground, strengthening organized crime, and contributing to instability, violence, and human rights abuses abroad while fueling a toxic drug crisis at home. 

What Canada Must Do Now 

To align our policies with our stated values, international law and human rights, Canada must: 

1. Close the arms-export loophole. Pass Bill C-233 to end the U.S. exemption, mandate end-use certificates, and report annually to Parliament on ATT compliance. Implementation should include a just transition plan for workers in defence manufacturing. 

2. Suspend participation in Operation CARIBBE pending an independent legal review of compliance with international law and human rights standards. The review must examine intelligence-sharing, command authority, and safeguards against Canadian-produced equipment, software, and data enabling lethal strikes. 

3. Formally endorse and implement UN HRC Resolution 60/26 within Canada’s national drug strategy. This includes integrating harm-reduction principles, Indigenous rights, and environmental protection into domestic law. 

4. Redirect military and law enforcement funding toward proven community supports. Reallocate wasted and harmful enforcement dollars into supportive, effective measures: overdose prevention, voluntary treatment on demand, housing, responsible regulation, liveable wages, and community-led services. This is exactly what UN human rights guidance recommends. 

5. Support OHCHR reporting on drug policy impacts. Contribute Canadian funding for studies on poverty, race, gender, Indigenous rights, and environmental harms related to drug policy. 

Canada must choose: assert our values or support Trump-ordered murder 

True safety comes from evidence, health, and human rights—not fear and force. Every dollar, every policy choice, and every diplomatic decision should reflect a core principle: the right to life, dignity, and health is non-negotiable.  

Killing civilians at sea breaks international law and perpetuates cycles of harm and violence.  

Canada’s participation in U.S.-led military strikes seems to demonstrate that our sovereignty and values remain conditional on American priorities. To live up to the principles we claim to hold, our elected leaders must take a stand: support the UN’s human rights framework, close export loopholes, and end Canada’s complicity in extrajudicial murder.  

Take Action 

Contact your MP to support Bill C-233, demand Canada withdraw from Operation CARIBBE until an independent legal review is completed, and insist federal dollars go to health and community supports—not warships and airstrikes that kill civilians. 

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1. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/10/u-s-airstrikes-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean-are-murder-congress-must-stop-them-now/  ↩︎
2. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/us-airstrikes-caribbean-drug-smugglers-9.6932751 ↩︎
3. https://ploughshares.ca/targeted-from-above-canadian-sensors-facilitating-unlawful-u-s-airstrikes-in-the-caribbean/  ↩︎
4. Prohibitionist drug policy, also frequently referred to as criminalization-based approaches, or the ‘war on drugs’, broadly refers to a series of policies, practices, and laws introduced throughout the 20th century that criminalize drug consumption and activities associated with it. While its stated aim is generally to reduce or eliminate drug use and availability, it is now widely recognized not only to have failed to achieve this despite massive, sustained public investment, but also to have driven severe negative consequences, disproportionately felt by marginalized communities. ↩︎
5. There is a lack of data demonstrating the efficacy of enforcement efforts in Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/corporate/transparency/corporate-management-reporting/evaluation/canadian-drugs-substances-strategy.html ↩︎
6. A 2020 report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy found that there is “no solid evidence that increasing the intensity of enforcement raises the actual costs for drug traffickers” ↩︎
7. https://www.healthpovertyaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/REPORT-Revealing-the-Missing-Link-to-Climate-Justice-Drug-Policy.pdf  ↩︎
8. A 2024 scoping review published in the International Journal of Drug Policy found “consistent evidence that fentanyl-related seizure measures” were associated with higher overdose mortality https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2024.104321 ↩︎
9. https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1962955342523879613  ↩︎
10. Guardian, “Colombia urges US to halt strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats: ‘It is murder’” (Oct 23, 2025)  ↩︎
11. ABC News, “Trump administration conducts military strikes on suspected drug-courier boats in the Pacific” (Oct 23, 2025) ↩︎
12. WOLA, “Lethal U.S. military strike on alleged drug traffickers sets a dangerous precedent in the ‘war on drugs’”   ↩︎
13. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/18/us-maritime-strikes-amount-to-extrajudicial-killings  ↩︎
14. https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/nx-s1-5584173/trump-drug-boats-venezuela-maduro  ↩︎
15. https://www.justsecurity.org/119985/labels-ustify-lethal-force-venezuelan-boat-strike/  ↩︎
16. Human Rights Watch, “US: Maritime Strikes Amount to Extrajudicial Killings” (Sept 18, 2025)  ↩︎
17. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/18/us-maritime-strikes-amount-to-extrajudicial-killings ↩︎
18. ACLU/MSNBC Opinion, “Trump’s boat strikes are killing potentially innocent civilians. They must be stopped” (Oct 15, 2025)  ↩︎
19. Government of Canada, Department of National Defence, “Operation CARIBBE” ↩︎
20. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/departmental-plans/departmental-plan-2025-26/planned-costs-major-caf-operations.html  ↩︎
21. https://ploughshares.ca/targeted-from-above-canadian-sensors-facilitating-unlawful-u-s-airstrikes-in-the-caribbean/  ↩︎
22. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-miliary-technology-1.7650129  ↩︎
23. https://www.thearmstradetreaty.org/hyper-images/file/TheArmsTradeTreaty1/TheArmsTradeTreaty.pdf  ↩︎
24. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-19/  ↩︎
25. https://ploughshares.ca/targeted-from-above-canadian-sensors-facilitating-unlawful-u-s-airstrikes-in-the-caribbean/  ↩︎
26. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2019-230/index.html  ↩︎
27. https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/c-233  ↩︎
28. https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/RES/60/26 ↩︎
29. https://idpc.net/blog/2025/10/the-human-rights-council-asserts-its-role-in-drug-policy-at-a-time-of-global-change  ↩︎
30. https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5453-human-rights-challenges-addressing-and-countering-all-aspects  ↩︎
31. https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5652-drug-use-harm-reduction-and-right-health-report-special  ↩︎
32. The 2023 Horizontal Evaluation of the Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy (CDSS) found that even before recent funding announcements, enforcement already consumed 58% of federal funding, compared with only 18% for prevention, 13% for treatment, 8% for harm reduction, and 3% for research. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/corporate/transparency/corporate-management-reporting/evaluation/canadian-drugs-substances-strategy.html  ↩︎
33. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2024/12/the-government-of-canadas-border-plan-significant-investments-to-strengthen-border-security-and-our-immigration-system.html  ↩︎
34. https://health-infobase.canada.ca/substance-related-harms/opioids-stimulants/  ↩︎

Addressing the Human Rights Impact of Synthetic Drugs: Challenges for Vulnerable Groups in the Americas 

The Cross-Border Working Group on Synthetic Drugs is a civil society initiative convened by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) with the purpose of bringing evidence-based information and policy proposals grounded in science, health, compassion, and human rights to decision-makers in response to the synthetic drug overdose crisis, decision makers and other stakeholders champion key strategies and avoid failed and harmful paradigms. 

Watch highlights from the session here.

When: Tuesday, March 11^th, 2025 

Participants 

• John Walsh, Washington Office on Latin America (moderator) 

• Steve Rolles, Transform Drug Policy Foundation  

• Theshia Naidoo, Drug Policy Alliance 

• Lisa Sánchez, México Unido Contra la Delincuencia 

• Renata Demichelis, Elementa DDHH 

• Nick Boyce, Canadian Drug Policy  (view presentation slides)

Drug Decriminalization: Separating Fact from Fiction 

The harms caused and exacerbated by drug policies that rely on criminalization and punishment are well documented.  In response, jurisdictions around the world have turned toward alternative strategies that center health and human rights, including over 70 national or subnational regions that have adopted various forms of drug decriminalization. While some of these policies have been operational for decades, other, more recent, reforms have faced backlash and setbacks. This side event will discuss the harms of criminalization, provide facts to counter misinformation about health centered drug policies, and discuss strategies employed by and lessons learned from recent decriminalization efforts. 

Watch the session here.

When: Wednesday, March 12^th, 2025 

Chair: Global Commission on Drug Policy  

Speakers: 

• Theshia Naidoo Drug Policy Alliance, U.S 

• Nick Boyce, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition  

• Isabel Pereira-Arana, Dejusticia, Colombia  

• Michael Kessler, Michael Kessler Media 

• Daniel Joloy, Amnesty International 

• Niamh Eastwood, Release, UK 

NGO co-sponsors: 

• Amnesty International 

• Canadian Drug Policy Coalition 

• Dejusticia 

• Disentir  

• Drug Policy Alliance 

• International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy 

• International Drug Policy Consortium 

• INPUD 

• LANPUD 

• Release  

This article first appeared as an op-ed in the National Post, April 21, 2014

We know the stories. Hockey bags that go south full of B.C. bud and return full of Latin American cocaine. Elaborate underground tunnels at both the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders. Canadian mobsters being gunned down in Mexican resort towns. Unlikely Mennonite drug mules crossing North America’s borders with illicit packages concealed in gas tanks and old farm equipment.

It’s easy to think it’s always been this way, but the reality is we can thank the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for much of this activity. So this year, while business leaders and politicians fete the 20th anniversary of NAFTA, drug runners and cartels will be doing the same.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Free traders wax poetically about the interconnected, globalized economy, and the whole point of NAFTA was to strengthen the economic integration of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico by reducing trade barriers.

How’s this for economic integration, then? Access to legal, regulated medical marijuana in Canada and the U.S. has reduced black market demand across the continent. This phenomenon will become more pronounced with the recent legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington, and more states to come. It’s worth noting too that concerns over drug gangs generally, but Canadian gangs in particular, were a key reason Washington voters supported legalization in that state. Regardless, marijuana farmers in Mexico have responded to decreased black market demand by shifting to poppy cultivation. This has resulted in a surge of cheap heroin availability at a time when heroin use is increasing in both the U.S. and Canada.

Yet despite the predictability of this kind of domino effect in a continental economy, then-U.S. president Bill Clinton forbade U.S. negotiators from discussing the illegal drug trade in NAFTA talks. Years later, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official Phil Jordan revealed: “We were prohibited from discussing the effects of NAFTA as it related to narcotics trafficking, yes.” As a result, “For the godfathers of the drug trade in Colombia and Mexico, this was a deal made in narco heaven.”

Indeed. NAFTA brought a proliferation of maquiladoras — companies operating in duty-free free-trade zones— to the north of Mexico and a massive increase in cross-border commercial traffic. In other words, freer movement of goods in a continent that represents “the world’s largest illicit drug market” according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. NAFTA also brought an influx of cheap, subsidized U.S. crops — including corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice — resulting in the collapse of northern Mexico’s agricultural sector. Some farmers shifted to marijuana, which is 1,000 times more lucrative than corn, pound for pound. The rest were in need of work.

Basically, NAFTA helped create ideal conditions for the rise of a lucrative cross-border drug and gun trade.

Governments responded by escalating the war on drugs, with devastating impacts on citizens and their communities throughout North America. An estimated 100,000 Mexicans have died or disappeared in drug-related violence, and the U.S. has the highest prison population in the world with over 2 million citizens behind bars. Of these, roughly 500,000 Americans are incarcerated on any given night for a drug law violation. At the same time, death from overdose and HIV/AIDS among injection drug users has taken thousands of lives in the U.S. and Canada. Add to all of that the pain of the families of those directly affected and the communities that have suffered these losses.

Twenty years after NAFTA’s signing, it’s time to finally acknowledge the drug market is a part of our integrated economy. In turn, we need to negotiate a modern, 21st century drug policy that addresses the health and safety issues across the region and undermines the illegal profiteers.

The good news is, there’s cause for optimism. The Organization of American States in particular is providing refreshing leadership through member states like Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala calling for a discussion about alternative approaches to the enforcement-heavy war on drugs. And some jurisdictions are implementing bold new paradigms on their own. Similar to the moves in Colorado and Washington, Uruguay became the first country in the world to authorize a legal, regulated market for adult cannabis use.

The current overemphasis on criminal justice approaches to drug control in North America has sidelined a variety of programs that can minimize the harms related to the drug trade and substance use, including public health promotion and prevention programs. It has also curbed economic and social advancement for drug-producing countries.

A North American Drug Policy Agreement could serve as a powerful statement of shared responsibility in addressing the trans-national drug problem. Such an agreement should include provisions for the consuming countries (U.S. and Canada) to reduce demand through social development and improved access to health responses. But it should also map out a legal, regulatory control framework for drugs that are currently illicit. This would reduce the violence within the drug trade, and all of the other prohibition-related harms that are far more destructive to communities and countries than substance use itself.

Yes, it would mark a departure from 40 years of restrictive, prohibitionist policies, but as Stephen Harper himself has noted, “the current approach is not working.” It’s time to try something else.