{"id":106092,"date":"2025-11-18T17:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=106092"},"modified":"2025-11-18T17:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:08:10","slug":"opinion-martin-danahay-discusses-legality-of-trump-administrations-caribbean-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2025\/11\/opinion-martin-danahay-discusses-legality-of-trump-administrations-caribbean-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Martin Danahay discusses legality of Trump administration’s Caribbean attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece written by Martin Danahay, Professor English Language and Literature, originally appeared in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Donald Trump administration in the United States\u00a0has authorized killing people in boats on the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, claiming they\u2019re transporting illegal drugs.<\/p>\n

Maritime and international law experts have raised concerns about the legality of the attacks.\u00a0And based on a maritime court case from 1884, this use of force may well be illegal.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration argues its actions are part of a\u00a0war against what it has termed \u201cnarco-terrorists.\u201d Killing the people manning these boats, it has said, will save the lives of Americans\u00a0who might otherwise die of drug overdoses\u00a0from the substances that are allegedly being transported by these boats.<\/p>\n

The rationale that the U.S. is justified to kill people at sea in order to save people is similar to what used to be called the\u00a0\u201ccustom of the sea\u201d, which excused\u00a0\u201csurvival cannibalism\u201d\u00a0if the consumption of one shipwrecked sailor helped the others survive. This custom, which basically excused \u201cmurder by necessity,\u201d was essentially outlawed in a\u00a0landmark case in 1884.<\/p>\n

The story of The Mignonette<\/strong><\/p>\n

The case involved an incident of cannibalism after the yacht\u00a0The Mignonette sank off the west coast of Africa and its four crew members escaped in a small dinghy with no time to gather food and water.<\/p>\n

After three weeks at sea, their situation became so dire that two of the men decided that the ailing youngest member of the crew, a 17-year-old boy named Richard Parker, should be sacrificed so the rest of them could survive. They killed Parker and used his body for food and drink; the third crew member later said he opposed their actions, though feasted on Parker anyway.<\/p>\n

Four days after they killed the boy, the three survivors were rescued.<\/p>\n

Two of them, Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens, were arrested for murder and cannibalism. They were brought to trial in\u00a0the case R v Dudley and Stephens.\u00a0The trial opened in Exeter, England after Dudley and Stephens pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

A panel of judges found them both guilty of murder and they were initially sentenced to death. This judgment was later\u00a0commuted to six months imprisonment due to errors in trial conduct. Nonetheless, the case did establish that their actions constituted murder and that necessity was not a valid defence for cannibalism.<\/p>\n

Justifying murder<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like the crew members of The Mignonette, U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed that killing people at sea is justified because it will preserve the lives of others.<\/p>\n

This is the same reasoning behind the now discredited \u201ccustom of the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than \u201csurvival cannibalism,\u201d this amounts to \u201csurvival killing\u201d based on the argument that other people will live if those on the boats die.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Dudley and Stephens\u00a0precedent means that if anyone ever goes to trial for the boat strikes, they could potentially be convicted of murder following the landmark 19th century ruling that killing and\u00a0eating people is wrong.<\/p>\n

The case\u00a0is taught in law classes\u00a0because of the difficult issues it raises:<\/p>\n