US President Donald Trump’s attack on Venuzuela and the kidnapping of its President Nicholas Maduro is international vandalism. In doing so, Trump displaced law with brute power with his self-interest replacing principle
morning is the perfect example of a state kidnapping the law to justify kidnapping a leader. It can never be considered as a move to uphold order. Instead, it advertises contempt for it.
No where in international law does it allow for the forced seizure of a sitting head of state of one country, but another.
Article 51 of the UN Charter provides for self-defence. This action does not fall within the definition of self-defence, not was it sanctioned by the UN. Actions such kidnapping the leader of a country can never be justified through any interpretation of international law.
President Trump has long argued that his focus on Venuzuela was aimed at ending drug-trafficking to the United States. There is no rule in international law allowing one state to take action as done by the US on Saturday on another country under the guise of dealing with drug trafficking. What makes it more implausible was the months-long build up of military presence, and the 150 military aircraft used to bomb Venuzuela, killing 80 people ahead of kidnapping Maduro.
No where in international law can any country justify the removal of another foreign head of state, particularly on the spurious basis used by President Trump. Human rights law does not provide for unilateral military seizures by self-appointed “leaders of the free world”, who for self-interest stomp on the rights of others. To allow action such as Trump’s to go unchallenged is to allow for sustained chaos across the globe.
In any case, if global leaders believed in the principle Trump used on Saturday, surely a more logical step would have been to take action against war-criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israel PM overseeing a genocide which the world watches in real time without taking any action. No such action has even been contemplated against Netanyahu, nor should it as the processes should be governed by the rule of law. In fact, despite the Palestinian genocide, leaders of the so called “rules based order” have chosen instead to proffer gentle chiding, while arming Israel’s killing spree.
The leaders of the “rules based order” have followed the same tone, gently chiding Trump, but not really offering a clear statement condemning Trump’s illegal invasion of Venuzuela and kidnapping of the president.
America has always had regime change as a key part of its foreign policy. Examples that come to mind are Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, Iraq in 2003 and Libya and Afghanistan. However, the kidnapping of the sitting president of another country has set a new low for US foreign policy.
Regime change is not an aberration in American foreign policy. It is a habit with a long paper trail, from Iran in 1953 to Guatemala in 1954, from Chile in 1973 to Iraq in 2003. But the kidnapping of a sitting president marks a new low. This is precisely the conduct the post-1945 legal order was designed to prohibit. The ban on the use of force is not a technicality. It is the central nervous system of international law. To violate it without authorisation is to announce that rules bind only the weak. The United States understands this perfectly. It is acting anyway, and in doing so is conducting the autopsy of the UN Charter system itself.
Indeed, if the United States were serious about this purported principle, consistency would compel action far closer to home. By the logic now advanced, there would be a far stronger legal and moral case to seize Benjamin Netanyahu, given the extensive, mainstream documentation of mass civilian harm and credible allegations of genocide arising from Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Yet no such logic is entertained. The reason is obvious. This is not law. It is imperial power selecting its targets.