This is a warning to all world leaders who antagonise Trump
There is no legal difference between Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine and US President Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela. According to the verdict at Nuremberg, both are acts of aggression and “the greatest crime”; because the leaders who start wars are responsible for all the resulting deaths and destruction. The 1945 UN Charter proclaims the aim of saving future generations from the scourge of war, and Article 2(4) lays down the fundamental rule that a UN member must never invade another except in self-defence.
It is absurd to think that Venezuela was about to attack the United States last Friday or in the near future. So Trump has no legitimate defense. But like Putin, he has nuclear weapons and has the right to veto any disruptive action the UN might take (such as condemnation by the Security Council).
In short, the indictment pending against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in New York grants no retroactive extraterritorial authority to arrest or imprison them or to invade or annex their nation. No agreement has allowed this and no international court has confirmed it. What occurred was not a “police action” or law enforcement procedure, but a unilateral use of armed force to coerce representatives of a sovereign state.
There can be no dispute that the purpose of the US occupation was to change the government regime. Trump admitted: The United States will now “govern the country” regardless of the interests or wishes of its people. Its economy will be organized by major US oil companies with the power to seize the infrastructure and profits taken away by nationalization under former president Hugo Chavez. This is the case of the US, for example, the families of the 40 or so civilians said to have been killed, their property destroyed, etc. This is a reversal of the international law requirement that Venezuelans must be compensated for the consequences of their illegal occupation. The oil transfer must have taken some time to plan, indicating that the seizure of the country’s oil reserves was one of the reasons for the invasion.
However, a few months ago, people suspected of drug trafficking were executed without trial; two of them clinging to the wreckage of their boat, which was notoriously bombed. The invasion and unlawful detention of Maduro and his wife were the culmination of unlawful conduct by US forces under Trump and his secretary of war, Pete Hegseth.
Australia and Britain, among other law-abiding countries, are parties to arrangements under which their armed forces may have to fight under the command of, or in partnership with, US forces led by men who are unaware of the rules of international law or their duties under it. It would certainly not be comfortable for our own armed forces to be called upon to protect Taiwan under US command.
This is more likely than ever as a result of Trump’s invasion of Venezuela: If he can get away with it, why not Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has a genuine, if flawed, historical claim to Taiwan? Trump’s unlawful but unpunished attack will set a precedent for him, and it is obvious that Trump, the great appeaser of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, will not fight to save democracy anywhere else.
As for what might be called a “non-lethal decapitation attack” on the Maduros, this sounds like a warning to any world leaders considering angering America. Legally, they are granted “head of state immunity” or a similar right against personal attacks. Even during the Second World War, captains and kings were not threatened with assassination: US president Theodore Roosevelt authorized an attack on an admiral in the Japanese fleet as revenge for Pearl Harbor, and British prime minister Winston Churchill approved a failed commando raid on German field marshal Erwin Rommel, but the general reluctance to target leaders was justified by fear of retaliation. Trump himself ended this convenient arrangement by threatening Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, saying “we know where he lives” but “it wasn’t the time to assassinate him yet.”
The fate of former and deposed Panamanian leader General Manuel Noriega (who is guilty of at least drug trafficking) threatens world leaders now at odds with Trump, no matter how democratically elected or how popular he is among their people. But overall, the attack on Venezuela followed by the attack on Ukraine shows that we live in an age where, as described by the ancient historian Thucydides, “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Although Trump had withdrawn the United States from the council before this report, there may be little remorse for Maduro, who is a convicted gangster according to several recent reports of abuse by the UN Human Rights Council.
International law has one last chance. While the United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court, Venezuela is, and any war crimes committed on its territory may be subject to prosecution. So Putin is on trial for kidnapping children from Ukraine, and Trump could be charged with kidnapping the Maduros or (more simply) killing civilians in the illegal bombing of Caracas.
Ironically, Maduro himself announced a few years ago that Venezuela would challenge the West by withdrawing from the ICC, but never got the opportunity to do so. It now remains his only chance.
Geoffrey Robertson KC was president of the UN War Crimes Tribunal in Sierra Leone and is the author of: World War Crimes It was published this month by Penguin.
Geoffrey Robertson KC is a London-based Australian human rights lawyer and founding chairman of Doughty Street Chambers. He is the author of He’s Quite His Own Man: In Court with Tyrants, Whores, and Troublemakers.
