end of list<\/span><\/section>\nUS President Donald Trump is \u201cbypassing \u2026 international law. He\u2019s bypassing Venezuelan law, \u2026 and he doesn\u2019t seem to give a damn about what the people of Venezuela really think or want,\u201d Barakat said.<\/p>\n
Trump-era policies and rhetoric have \u201cmutated\u201d US politics as nationalism has intensified and Christianity has become more entwined with governance \u2013 trends that will distort the existing international order, he added.<\/p>\n
The US bombed Venezuela on Saturday, abducting Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and taking them to New York to face drug-trafficking charges.<\/p>\n
Trump said the US will \u201crun\u201d Venezuela and tap its oil wealth, the clear reason behind the attack, couched in flimsy law enforcement rhetoric, according to Barakat.<\/p>\n
The illegality of Trump\u2019s action<\/h2>\n
International law is clear on what the US did, Barakat said: It\u2019s illegal.<\/p>\n
A state cannot seize or remove the leader of another sovereign state unless the United Nations Security Council authorises the use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.<\/p>\n
The 2011 intervention in Libya when the country\u2019s former leader <\/span>Muammar Gaddafi was deposed had Security Council authorisation.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cBut even then, it should not [have been] at all about regime change. It [can only be] in defence of a prosecuted people \u2026 to prevent genocide, to prevent crimes against humanity,\u201d Barakat said.<\/p>\n
In Iraq, a US-led coalition invoked what turned out to be unfounded allegations of weapons of mass destruction as justification to invade the country and topple President Saddam Hussein without initial UN authorisation.<\/p>\n
Yet \u201cwhen they captured [Hussein], they did not attempt to extract him from Iraq. They tried him inside Iraq,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Post\u20119\/11, Barakat said, international law has allowed cross\u2011border actions against \u201cterrorist groups\u201d when such actions are used to prevent \u201cterrorist operations\u201d in the acting state\u2019s territory.<\/p>\n
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Trump for New Year\u2019s Eve, there were discussions between the pair attempting to link Maduro to Iran, Hezbollah and Palestinian groups in the hopes he could be labelled under the US Terrorism Act, which Barakat called tenuous attempts to \u201cborrow\u201d legitimacy from existing counterterrorism mechanisms.<\/p>\n
Jurisdictional hook?<\/h2>\n
International law regards military action on the territory of another state without its consent as a violation of that state\u2019s sovereignty, Barakat said.<\/p>\n
In some conflicts, intervening states justified their actions by asserting consent from a sovereign state, such as in Syria, where operations against ISIL (ISIS) were presented as occurring with the Syrian government\u2019s blessing, he said.<\/p>\n
In Venezuela, the US is instead leaning on a US domestic court indictment from 2020, accusing Maduro of drug trafficking as a jurisdictional hook.<\/p>\n
But using a US indictment to justify abducting a foreign head of state from his country is problematic, Barakat said. Normally, a suspect is detained in the state asserting jurisdiction or extradited through Interpol and international agreements.<\/span><\/p>\nWhile Trump has shown \u201ctotal disregard\u201d for international law and backs Netanyahu, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the US president is now citing ICC processes against Maduro, Barakat added.<\/p>\n
The legality of the US abduction of Maduro will be under the spotlight at the UN Security Council on Monday, but Washington is unlikely to face strong criticism from its allies, who oppose Maduro.<\/p>\n
Russia, China and other Venezuela allies have accused the US of violating international law. European states have called for respect of international law without calling out Washington.<\/p>\n
Testing the limits of international norms<\/h2>\n
The Venezuela operation carries particular weight in the Middle East, where Israel has conducted abductions for decades, kidnapping individuals abroad (such as Nazi war criminals in Argentina) and trying them in Israel, Barakat said.<\/p>\n
The analyst argued that Israel and the US learn from each other, with one\u2019s impunity reinforcing the other\u2019s confidence in justifying similar actions.<\/p>\n
During Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza, Netanyahu invoked US and British actions in Iraq and Afghanistan as precedents for using force against people he dubbed \u201cterrorists\u201d, Barakat explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow in the US, I think they will probably use the Israeli precedent as a justification for what they\u2019ve done [in Venezuela],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
By this logic, other states could also try to detain Israeli leaders for violations of international law. However, while several ICC member states said they would arrest Netanyahu in their countries, they lack the \u201cguts\u201d to conduct a US-style cross\u2011border extraction, Barakat said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the US operation in Venezuela could give Russia and China justification for similar extraterritorial seizures, the analyst said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I were [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, I would be now thinking, how can I get Zelensky?\u201d said Barakat, adding that China could attempt something similar regarding Taiwan.<\/p>\n
The precedent set in Venezuela fundamentally weakens the current international order, Barakat emphasised.<\/p>\n
If China, as an emerging global power, responds to global crises militarily rather than through economic influence as it has been or if more states pursue nuclear weapons, a genuinely new world order \u2013 possibly bipolar and more confrontational \u2013 could emerge, the professor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that it seems the only way to independent politics is to have a nuclear weapon. Then things will change dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The abduction of Venezuela\u2019s Nicolas Maduro was an attack by the United States that skirted not only international law but also US political limits, an analyst says. It is part of the US\u2019s \u201cnew imperialistic era\u201d centred on oil and strategic interests and risks normalising similar actions by other powers, Sultan Barakat, senior professor at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7570","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\/7570","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=7570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}