"Illegal" was the word most used by governments and commentators across the globe to describe the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Moro last weekend by a US Delta Force squad
There is, however, no consensus. Some, including many leftist politicians in Europe call it “an act of piracy”. Others label it as “hostage taking”. The term “kidnapping” has also been used.
That politico juristic cacophony puts the term “illegal” into a bracket denoting doubt. An act is described as illegal when it contravenes a law or set of clearly spelled out laws recognized by a collectivity.
In this case the collectivity is supposed to consist of the 193 member states of the United Nations that include both Venezuela and the US. Those who argue that the US operation was illegal refer to the principle of “national sovereignty” that is supposed to be the cornerstone of international law.
The trouble is that the same international law does not offer a clear definition either of the nation or of the term sovereignty. The Uruguay Accords define a nation as a country with demarcated borders and under control of a distinct authority. Such an entity enjoys sovereignty within its borders and according to its own laws.
With the creation of the United Nations abiding by the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were added as conditions for recognizing the concept of national sovereignty.
Produced by nations that had won the Second World War the UN Charter focused on setting rules, albeit vague ones, on the use of force in the context of an act of war against one member state against another.
Thus, any use of military force would only be legal if specifically approved by the United Nations’ Security Council as was the case in the US intervention in the Korean Peninsula’s civil war and the eviction of Iraq from occupied Kuwait.
However, the same shambolic legal system also recognizes the right of self-defense and even preemptive action in the face of clear and present danger.
In recent years other considerations have been raised to justify the use of force in the name of “the right to intervene” and the “principle of protection”.
Waging war with permission from the UN Security Council has been a rare exception.
All Arab-Israeli wars, four Indo-Pakistani wars, two wars between Bolivia and Chile, the UK-Argentine war over the Falklands, the Iran-Iraq war, and the current Cambodia-Thailand war are among many such cases of use of force with no regard for rules set by UN.
All five veto-holding members of Security Council have ignored the rules.
The US intervened in Indochina, Grenada and in the second Iraq war with no UN sanction. Russia has annexed part of Japanese, Chinese, Georgian and Ukrainian territory with no regard for the sacrosanct concept of “national sovereignty”.
China has annexed chunks of Indian and Vietnamese territory in the same way and continues to annex islands in South China Sea while dangling the Sword of Damocles over Taiwan.
France has used military force in half a dozen African countries to install or protect client regimes, while aiding secessionists in Canada and Nigeria with no regard for those nations’ sovereignty. Britain used military force in Malaysia and participated in the second Iraq war along with the US.
Other UN members have also ignored the principle.
India annexed the Portuguese territory of Goa and the French enclaves of Mahe and Chandernagor. Indonesia annexed West Irian and part of the Timor Island. Türkiye attacked and still occupies parts of Cyprus. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members intervened in former Yugoslavia to change the regime in Serbia and carve out Kosovo as an independent state.
Sometimes respect for national sovereignty bears tragic fruits.
Dutch Special Forces stationed in Bosnia to protect civilians watched while Serbian militias massacred over 8,000 Muslims a stone throw’s away from the UN base. In Rwanda a French forces reported to Paris that the Hutu government was massacring Tutsis on an industrial scale. President Francois Mitterrand’s order was to respect Rwanda’s “national sovereignty” and do nothing.
Let us return to the issue of sovereignty in the Venezuelan case. Isn’t it fanciful to suggest that the Maduro outfit represented that sovereignty? Maduro lost two presidential elections, one of which was certified by Venezuela’s own parliament to have been won by the opposition, and resurfaced as a dictator.
Could that not be seen as a transfer of sovereignty from him to the Venezuelan people who do not seem unhappy about his demise and hope to regain their national sovereignty?
What about the US’s national sovereignty? Do vaguely international concepts supersede national laws?
Maduro and his wife were accused of drugs smuggling, a federal crime, by the Drug Enforcement Agency in 2022. Thus, the federal government had the duty of bringing them to justice. In theory that could have been done by Interpol of which Venezuela is a member. But it is fanciful to suggest that Maduro’s own police would have arrested and extradited him under agreements signed between Washington and Caracas in the 1960s.
There had been similar cases before Madura’s arrest including the arrests of Panama President Manuel Noriega and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, the latter shortly after the end of his presidential term. Thus, one could suggest that the US has exercised its sovereign rights to enforce its laws in defense of its legitimate interest to protect its people against harm done by drugs.
No legal system could anticipate all imaginable cases of an illegal action. That can be done only if and when an act contravenes a clearly defined law that also envisages a clearly defined punishment. Neither of those caveats applies to the foggy notion of national sovereignty let alone to the foggier concept of international law.
Leaving aside virtue-signalers and Blame-America cabals attacking the US, the truth is that international law is as exposed as the Wizard of Oz was at the end of Dorothy’s journey.
Perhaps the most accurate description of Operation Absolute Resolve came from Beijing with the term “hegemonic act”. True, the US acted as a hegemon that is to say a power capable of enforcing its laws against foes.
The late Hugo Chavez called Maduro “my bus driver”. Maduro drove the Venezuelan bus into a ravine and made himself easily kidnappable. Venezuela doesn’t cry for him.
