## Facts

- The U.S. Coast Guard observed a wooden fishing vessel operating without lights or a flag in Panamanian waters and notified Panamanian authorities.
- The Panamanian Navy pursued the vessel until its occupants abandoned it and fled into nearby jungle terrain.
- Panamanian authorities searched the vessel and found approximately 760 kilograms of cocaine.
- Panamanian forces later arrested Yimmi Bellaizac-Hurtado, Luis Carlos Riascos-Hurtado, Pedro Angulo-Rodallega, and Albeiro Gonzalez-Valois on the beach and in the jungle.
- Panama consented, via diplomatic communications, to the suspects’ prosecution in the United States.
- A federal grand jury charged defendants under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA) with conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine on a vessel alleged to be subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
- Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing the MDLEA was unconstitutional as applied to their conduct in Panama’s territorial waters; the district court denied the motion.
- Defendants entered conditional guilty pleas to the conspiracy count, preserving their constitutional challenge, and received prison sentences.

## Issues

1. Whether Congress may, under Article I’s Offences Clause, apply the MDLEA to drug-trafficking conduct occurring in the territorial waters of a foreign sovereign on the theory that drug trafficking is an “Offence[] against the Law of Nations.”
2. Whether widespread treaty regulation and broad international condemnation are sufficient to treat drug trafficking as a customary international law offense for Offences Clause purposes.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit vacated the defendants’ convictions.
- The court held the MDLEA unconstitutional as applied to defendants’ conduct in Panama’s territorial waters under the government’s Offences Clause theory.
- The court concluded drug trafficking is not an “Offence[] against the Law of Nations” within the meaning of the Offences Clause.
- The court rejected the view that “universal condemnation” or extensive treaty commitments alone establish a customary international law offense.

## Legal Principles

- Congress’s authority under the Offences Clause to “define and punish” offenses against the law of nations is limited by customary international law’s recognized offenses.
- Historically recognized law-of-nations offenses include piracy, violations of safe-conduct, assaults on ambassadors, and violations of neutrality; drug trafficking is not among them.
- Treaties and widespread criminalization may show international concern but do not, without consistent state practice and opinio juris, establish an offense as customary international law.
- Conduct occurring within another nation’s territorial waters implicates that nation’s sovereignty; absent a valid constitutional basis for extraterritorial criminalization, federal criminal statutes cannot be sustained on an Offences Clause rationale.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit held that drug trafficking has not attained the status of a customary international law offense and therefore cannot be prosecuted under the MDLEA on an Offences Clause theory for conduct occurring in a foreign nation’s territorial waters, requiring vacatur of the defendants’ convictions.


United States v. Bellaizac-Hurtado, 700 F.3d 1245 (11th Cir. 2012)