Law enforcement has not gone beyond Venezuela’s borders with the US’s intervention in abducting President Nicolás Maduro. It is plain, unadorned, and vandalism from another country.
Preference has replaced principle, power has replaced law, and force has been portrayed as virtue. The international order is not being defended by this. It executes quietly. A state does not uphold order when it violates the law to justify kidnapping a leader. It promotes contempt for it.
The US’s forced seizure of a sitting head of state is prohibited by international law. None . According to Article 51 of the UN Charter, it is not self-defense. The UN Security Council did not grant it permission. Although international law encompasses many things, it is not a roving moral warrant for powerful countries to abduct people and change their governments.
Particularly corrosive is the claim that alleged human rights violations or trafficking in narcotics justify the removal of a foreign head of state. No such rule exists. not in international law. not in the law of customs. Not in any significant jurisprudence.
States are required to follow ethical standards by human rights law. It forbids unilateral military seizure by self-declared global sheriffs. The world would be a perpetual state of sanctioned chaos if that were the norm.
Indeed, consistency would force action much more directly at home if the US were serious about this alleged principle. Given the extensive evidence of widespread civilian harm and credible allegations of genocide arising from Israel’s actions in Gaza, it would be much more rational to seize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in light of the logic now being advanced.
No one seems to understand this logic. The explanation is simple. This does not violate the law. It chooses its targets using power.
The American government’s foreign policy does not reflect a regime change. From Iran in 1953 to Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, and Iraq in 2003, the habit has a protracted paper trail.
However, the president’s kidnapping sets a new high. The post-war legal order was specifically intended to outlaw this kind of behavior. The use of force is not permitted due to a technicality. The international legal system’s central nervous system is it. It is to declare that rules only bind the weak when violating it without authorization.
This is perfectly understood by the US. It is acting in any way, and it is conducting the UN Charter system’s own autopsy.
The rot doesn’t stop there. Washington has repeatedly broken UN Headquarters Agreement and Charter obligations. It has denied access to the officials it favors. Last year, it was not a diplomatic error to prevent the Palestinian president from speaking in person at the UN General Assembly. The host nation, one of the most important multilateral institution in the world, violated the treaty.
Unmistakable was the message. American approval is necessary for access to the international system and adherence to the UN Charter.
Power was not to be flattering or restrained by the UN. It increasingly fails to stop serious international law violations today. The UN has deviated from the supposedly legal guardian to a stage prop for its erosion due to its vetoes, bullying by its host, and being ignored by those most capable of violating its charter.
Denial eventually turns into self-deception. In the main promise, the system failed. International law is naive, not because its most powerful supporter has chosen to accept it as optional.
Therefore, it is appropriate to address the unsayable: a host nation that views treaty obligations as inconveniences should relocate the UN permanently. And the international community needs to start a serious, sober discussion about a different global structure that has power beyond that of the UN, which has been hollowed out from within.
Law cannot be a lingo. Either it restrains those who wield the most force or it uses rhetoric to criticize those who don’t. The US’s actions in Venezuela are not intended to undermine international law. It demonstrates that preference has been replaced by international order. And preferences don’t have any restrictions, unlike law.
