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US President Donald Trump and his allies have defended the US attacks on Venezuela and the removal of President Nicolas Maduro from power amid widespread condemnation that the actions violate international law.<\/p>\n
Trump told reporters on Saturday that Maduro was \u201ccaptured\u201d after US military strikes on the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, for carrying out a purported \u201ccampaign of deadly narco-terrorism against the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n He said the US government would \u201crun\u201d the South American country during a political transition, promising the Venezuelan people that they would become \u201crich, independent and safe\u201d.<\/p>\n But Claire Finkelstein, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, has rejected the Trump administration\u2019s arguments in defence of the attacks and removal of Maduro, as well as its plans to exert control over Venezuela.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any basis under international law for the action that occurred overnight by the US government,\u201d Finkelstein told Al Jazeera, describing the attacks as an \u201cillegal use of force [and] a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cMaduro has personal jurisdiction rights, so not only is it a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty, but it\u2019s a violation of his personal, international rights,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Numerous statutes of international law \u2013 including the UN Charter \u2013 prohibit states from attacking another country without provocation.<\/p>\n \u201cAll Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations,\u201d the UN Charter says.<\/p>\n The US actions came amid a months-long pressure campaign against Maduro, whom the Trump administration accused, without evidence, of being linked to drug traffickers.<\/p>\n Washington had carried out deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean, seized vessels carrying oil off the Venezuelan coast, sanctioned members of Maduro\u2019s family, and threatened to launch attacks on the country\u2019s soil.<\/p>\n \u201cNicolas Maduro wasn\u2019t just an illegitimate dictator, he also ran a vast drug-trafficking operation,\u201d US Congressman Tom Cotton, a top Trump ally, wrote on social media on Saturday, welcoming the moves against the Venezuelan leader.<\/p>\n Before he was seized, Maduro had said he was open to dialogue with the US on drug trafficking. He also had accused the Trump administration of seeking to depose him and seize control of Venezuela\u2019s vast oil reserves.<\/p>\n Democratic Party lawmakers in the US had been demanding answers from the Trump administration about its aims in Venezuela, accusing the Republican president of seeking to unlawfully carry out acts of war without congressional oversight.<\/p>\n Under the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war.<\/p>\n But that authority has been weakened over the last several decades, with the US carrying out military strikes around the world during its so-called \u201cwar on terror\u201d based on loosely-interpreted congressional authorisations.<\/p>\n On Saturday, Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said that, despite the Trump administration\u2019s claims, \u201cthere was no imminent threat to the United States\u201d from Venezuela, \u201ccertainly not one that justified military action without congressional authorization\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThese actions violate both US and international law and, by Trump\u2019s own admission, this is not a limited operation,\u201d Meeks said in a statement shared on social media.<\/p>\n This was echoed by the\u00a0University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Finkelstein, who said there was no \u201cimmediate threat\u201d to the US that would justify the executive branch carrying out attacks without notifying Congress.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an act of war against Venezuela, and we did not have the kind of self-defence justification that would normally justify bypassing Congress,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if you believe the US is at grave danger because of drug trafficking, there isn\u2019t the kind of imminence there that would justify the president moving unilaterally and not turning to Congress and trying to get them on board.\u201d<\/p>\n Finkelstein also rejected Trump\u2019s plans for the US to \u201crun\u201d Venezuela as \u201cincredibly illegal\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cStates have sovereignty rights, and you cannot just invade them and take them over,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if Maduro were to fall of his own accord and we had not brought that about, we don\u2019t have the right to go in and start running their government,\u201d Finkelstein said.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocracy is premised on the idea that the people are sovereign and the people choose their own leaders, and that\u2019s something we should be promoting in Latin and South America, not trying to undermine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n US President Donald Trump and his allies have defended the US attacks on Venezuela and the removal of President Nicolas Maduro from power amid widespread condemnation that the actions violate international law. Trump told reporters on Saturday that Maduro was \u201ccaptured\u201d after US military strikes on the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, for carrying out a purported […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018No imminent threat\u2019<\/h2>\n
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