It cannot be a war crime if there is no war. There is no declaration of war and no approval of Congress. The ICC classified these strikes as crimes against humanity.
Any time a state uses armed force against another state (and sometimes against other entities), there is a war in which there can be war crimes.
> There is no declaration of war
War is war whether or not it is formally declared. (And the Trump Administration has described that it is fighting a war against Venezuela for months, though it has characterized Venezuela as the aggressor.) This was, among other things, the explicit premise of the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act months ago.
> and no approval of Congress.
That might arguably make any war also a violation of domestic law, but from the standpoint of international law it isn’t particularly a meaningful argument against their being a war.
> The ICC classified these strikes as crimes against humanity.
No, an individual who used to be a prosecutor with the ICC, acting as a private individual, described them that way.
Is this true? Legitimate question.
(Under U.S. law, I do believe they are war crimes given they're an abuse of war powers, whether exercised legally or not.)
> ICC classified these strikes as crimes against humanity
No, it did not. A "former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC)" told the BBC "US air strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats would be treated under international law as crimes against humanity" [1].
I haven't seen the ICC take an official position on any of this, which is expected, since it's a judicial body that grinds deliberately.
In order to define an act as a war crime, this act must, besides having nexus to an armed conflict, be a serious violation of international humanitarian law and entail individual criminal responsibility."
https://www.rulac.org/legal-framework/international-criminal...
There is not.
The Trump admin wants to say they’re invaders therefore we don’t need Congressional authorization, but they’re actually irregulars therefore we don’t need to follow Geneva, but they’re actually terrorists therefore…
All of it is nonsense.
International human rights law is back to being an aspirational ideal. Every one of the world's great powers have explicitly rejected it. (So have most of regional powers.)
I'd love it if Trump, Xi and Putin could be hauled in front of an international tribunal for the atrocities they've committed. But it isn't happening. Not to them. Nor to Netanyahu, Kim, Khamenei, Modi, Lukashenko or MBS.
At the end of the day, the only thing that can hold Trump and the U.S. military accountable is U.S. law. Bickering over what crime is committed under that law might be teidous. But it is a legitimate activity that could bring real consequences in a way bringing up what a former ICC prosecutor thinks does not.
> All of it is nonsense
This is lazy. Top of the thread. Real debate happening around whether war crimes were committed. Dismissing that as "nonsense" enables and implicitly supports the illegal behaviour.
> Real debate happening around whether war crimes were committed
But the debate isn't about whether war crimes were committed. The debate is whether war crime law is relevant. And that debate is endless for the reason I just explained: the Trump admin will play the shell game of defining the relevant legal framework as X when it suits them, then Y when it suits them, then Z when it suits them, despite the fact that X Y and Z are mutually exclusive of each other.
Are they a stateless vessel? Are they narco-terrorists? Are they drug smugglers? Are they foreign invaders? Are they agents of the Venezuelan government?
Well, all and none of the above, depending on who is asking for what reason.
This is legal nihilism and Schmittian Decisionism. The administration has declared itself unbound by law altogether. All that matters is calling it a violation, collecting evidence, and when political powers shift, holding the relevant parties to account. Under a non-nihilistic/decisionist legal framework, there will be no shortage of chargeable offenses.
That body politic remains, for now, grounded in voters. The number of calls Congressmen receive in the coming days about this issue will determine whether it's taken seriously.
> the debate isn't about whether war crimes were committed. The debate is whether war crime law is relevant
First step in any court opinion is the establishment of juridiction. That's important here.
Even in this thread, we have folks arguing war crime statute doesn't apply. That appears to be false. It's an example of why debating and establishing that this law is relevant in the popular discourse is important.
> Are they a stateless vessel? Are they narco-terrorists? Are they drug smugglers? Are they foreign invaders? Are they agents of the Venezuelan government?
Another reason to focus on U.S. law. I don't believe these distinctions matter under it.
And even if they decided these were criminal acts, they're official acts so he has immunity from prosecution.