Donald Trump’s own description of US actions in Venezuela – that it will “run” the country, remaining until Washington decides a political transition has occurred, and installing US oil companies to control production – outlines conduct that is plainly illegal under international law and sets a dangerous precedent (Donald Trump warns of ‘big price to pay’ if Caracas fails to toe line, 4 January).
The UN charter prohibits the use or threat of force against another state, except in self-defence or with security council authorisation. Neither applies here. However illegitimate a government may be, regime change by invasion, occupation or foreign administration is unlawful. That rule exists precisely to prevent powerful states imposing political outcomes by force.
Trump’s words amount to an admission of occupation. Under the Hague regulations and Geneva conventions, an occupying power may not assume sovereign authority, dictate political outcomes, or exploit natural resources. To do so constitutes pillage – a war crime. The UN secretary general has already warned that international law has not been respected.
By contrast, Keir Starmer’s response – welcoming the end of Maduro’s regime while declining to condemn the use of force – risks treating legality as conditional on political approval, rather than as a binding rule. As a human rights barrister, whose legal opinion in 2015 was that the Iraq war was illegal as it had no UN resolution authorising it, he should know better.
This matters far beyond Venezuela. The case against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rests on the same principle: borders and governments cannot be changed by force. If Venezuela is treated as an exception, that principle collapses. International law cannot be selective.
Hannah Walker
Wymondham, Leicestershire
I feel, and share, Nesrine Malik’s anger (Trump’s coup in Venezuela didn’t just break the rules – it showed there aren’t any. We’ll all regret that, 5 January). But what is the right response? Righteous indignation is all very well, but will do nothing to combat such hostile supremacy. The UK is in no position to confront any of these tyrannical superpowers and our choice of allies is limited. The principles of international law that have secured some kind of world order for the past 80 years are being openly ignored and the UN is toothless in the face of leaders who are so openly contemptuous of an ethos of collaboration and democratic freedom.
The only possible route to an effective challenge to Trump et al is surely for Europe, with other nations around the world such as Canada, South Africa and Australia, to get its act together and form an alternative alliance with sufficient defence and trading powers to provide real opposition.
But with Europe so divided, and resources so constrained, the pace at which that is progressing is alarmingly slow. That is where we need to be directing our anger, and we should use our democratic rights of protest (while we still have some) to bang our collective leaders’ heads together and push as hard as we can for such an alliance.
Celia Cashman
Sheffield
Why do you say Nicolás Maduro’s was “captured” by US troops? This seizure is better described as an abduction or a kidnap. If any country other than the US had invaded a foreign country, killing civilians in the process, and carried off the head of state, then that is how it would have been described.
Charlie Owen
London
