Custom of the sea

The Donald Trump administration in the United States has authorized killing people in boats on the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, claiming they're transporting illegal drugs.

- MARTIN DANAHAY

Maritime and international law experts have raised concerns about the legality of the attacks. And based on a maritime court case from 1884, this use of force may well be illegal.

The Trump administration argues its actions are part of a war against what it has termed "narco-terrorists." Killing the people manning these boats, it has said, will save the lives of Americans who might otherwise die of drug overdoses from the substances that are allegedly being transported by these boats.

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 "custom of the sea", which excused "survival cannibalism" if the consumption of one shipwrecked sailor helped the others survive. This custom, which basically excused "murder by necessity," was essentially outlawed in a landmark case in 1884.

The case involved an incident of cannibalism after the yacht The 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.

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 would 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.

Four days after they killed the boy, the three survivors were rescued.

Two of them, Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens, were arrested for murder and cannibalism. They were brought to trial in the case R v Dudley and Stephens. The trial opened in Exeter, England after Dudley and Stephens pleaded not guilty.