...a battlefield is, in law, still a law-enforcement space. Part I examined how States have justified and conducted foreign military or law-enforcement interventions against drug cartels, through three distinct legal models: the United States’ claim of
extraterritorial self-defense, China’s consent-based cross-border enforcement on the Mekong, and Afghanistan’s joint operations grounded in host-State consent. Part II explores how other States—Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico—have faced similar dilemmas in classifying drug-related violence. It examines how each has navigated the boundary between organized crime and armed conflict, and what these choices reveal about the...