Jasin wrote Yesterday at 4:31pm:


Incorrect.

Moreover, there is zero evidence to suggest that these people who were murdered had drugs onboard.

Under which country's flag were these boats sailing?  Er.... they were sailing unflagged.
Oh?! Meaning?



A ship in international waters is required, under the United Nations Conference of the Law of the Seas (“UNCLOS”) to sail under the flag of a specific nation. If a ship does not, it is legally considered a stateless vessel. A ship in international waters that is not flying a national flag is categorized in international law the same way a pirate is. These ships have absolutely no national or international protections, and no immunity from interference by other states. You cannot commit a war crime against them.

UNCLOS Articles 92, 94, 110, and customary maritime law spell out the consequences clearly:

A flagged ship is an extension of its flag-state’s sovereignty. A stateless vessel is not. This matters because “war crimes” presuppose protected persons or protected property. A stateless vessel is legally unprotected.

Any state may stop, board, search, seize, or disable, a stateless vessel. UNCLOS Article 110 explicitly authorizes boarding and seizure. The law does not require states to risk their own personnel or assets while doing so. Disabling a vessel that refuses inspection, including firing on it, is legally permitted under both UNCLOS and long-established state practice.

War crimes require an armed conflict. You cannot commit a “war crime” outside an armed conflict. War crimes occur only within the context of international humanitarian law. Enforcing maritime law against a stateless vessel is a law enforcement action, not an armed conflict.

Lethal force may be used when a vessel refuses lawful orders. The International Maritime Organization’s “Use of Force” guidance for maritime interdiction recognizes that disabling fire, even lethal force, is lawful when a vessel refuses lawful boarding, attempts to flee, poses a threat, or engages in illicit activities such as piracy or narcotics trafficking.

Sinking a stateless vessel is not prohibited by UNCLOS. UNCLOS permits seizure of a stateless vessel and leaves the means entirely to the enforcing state so long as necessity and proportionality are respected. If the vessel flees, attacks, or refuses lawful commands, sinking it is legally permissible. Many states routinely do this to drug-smuggling vessels (e.g., semi-submersibles) without it ever being treated as a war crime.

No flag: no jurisdictional shield. The entire reason international law requires ships to fly a flag is to prevent this exact situation. Flagless vessels are legally vulnerable by design.

Because a stateless vessel has no protected status, because UNCLOS authorizes interdiction of such vessels, because lethal force may be used in maritime law enforcement when necessary, and because war crimes require an armed conflict that is not present here, sinking an unflagged ship in international waters is not a war crime.

Flying a national flag grants a vessel nationality and sovereign protection from its flag state, while failing to do so renders it a stateless vessel, subject to boarding, search, and seizure by any nation

legally considered a stateless vessel. A ship in international waters that is not flying a national flag is categorized in international law the same way a pirate is. These ships have absolutely no national or international protections, and no immunity from interference by other states.

Any state may stop, board, search, seize, or disable, a stateless vessel.

Lethal force may be used when a vessel refuses lawful orders.

disabling fire, even lethal force, is lawful when a vessel refuses lawful boarding, attempts to flee, poses a threat, or engages in illicit activities such as piracy or narcotics trafficking.

so long as necessity and proportionality are respected.

Neither are respected here, especially with the survivors.

greggerypeccary wrote Yesterday at 4:37pm:


The PROOF is in the many examples of drug smugglers, which could be as long as over 10 years (coinciding with a drug plague in America having emerged), having been caught, surveyed, etc - BEFORE the action of them being destroyed as a deterrent (because lesser measures have proven to have failed, hence the increase of smuggling over the years)
.

Your argument of denial to virtue signal yourself on here, is to deny an armed intruder into your home after even five intrusions into your home previously by armed intrusions that caused harm to your family while you were hanging out at your local gay bar. You believe that standing in no man's land between two fronts of battle proves your innocence of superiority over both. You are what is known as Dead Meat in its most stupid of forms.
Basically, you are not qualified to comment on such topics.

Bobby. wrote Yesterday at 4:48pm:


Lethal injection would be more likely.

However, I don't condone either method - I don't support the death penalty under any circumstances.

As long as Pisshead Pete spent the rest of his life behind bars (prison bars), I'd be happy.

greggerypeccary wrote Yesterday at 4:41pm:

Er.. there is NO flag on that boat.
White or otherwise.

greggerypeccary wrote Yesterday at 5:04pm:

You have no proof that they aren't. 

Jasin wrote Yesterday at 5:07pm:


That's not how the burden of proof works, and I'm pretty sure you know that.

In an argument, the burden of proof (or onus probandi) is the obligation of the person making a claim to provide sufficient evidence to support it; you don't have to disprove someone's assertion, they have to prove it, otherwise, they fall into the burden of proof fallacy, which wrongly assumes their claim is true until proven false.