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EXPERT COMMENT

This may be the moment when Western Europe realizes that the US has abandoned the core values that united them for the past century, writes the head of Chatham House’s International Law Programme.

The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife by US forces operating in Venezuela, and his forced transfer to the US for trial, poses a significant challenge for international law. 

The US has described the operation as a judicial ‘extraction mission’ undertaken by law enforcement operatives supported by the military. Yet this was a military operation of considerable scale, involving strikes on military targets in and around Caracas, the capital, and the forcible abduction of a sitting president by US special forces. It is clearly a significant violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and the UN Charter. 

This fact is compounded by President Donald Trump’s announcement during his press conference of 3 January that the US will ‘run’ Venezuela and administer a political transition, or regime change, under the threat of further, more massive uses of force. In addition, there seems to be a determination to use the threat of force to extract funds and resources in compensation for supposed ‘stolen’ or nationalized US assets and oil. 

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.