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America’s and its allies’ violation of the U.N. Charter, in regards to their recent actions to force a regime-change upon the sovereign nation of Venezuela, are baldly, and with unambiguous clarity, in violation of one of the seven founding “Principles” that are stated in the U.N. Charter.
These violations are so severe as to demonstrate that the U.S. Government is an international rogue-regime — a blatant and unapologetic and repeated violator of the U.N. Charter, and of other major sources of international law.
The U.N. Charter contains 19 “Chapters” or main divisions, and 111 “Articles” which include each subdivision within each “Chapter.” Some, but not all, of the 111 Articles are further broken down into numbered subdivisions. But the lower the number of a Chapter, and the lower the number of an Article within a Chapter, the more central to the U.N.’s purpose (maintaining world peace and preventing a World War III) that given statement is.
Article 1 Section 2 of the U.N. Charter asserts to be one of the 4 “purposes” of the U.N.:
“To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.”
Article 2 Section 4 of the U.N. Charter states that “The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following [7] Principles” including this one, #4 of the 7:
“All 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.”
Article 2 Section 7 of the U.N. Charter excludes from international law any coercive action by outside nations regarding the internal affairs of any nation:
“Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”
That’s pretty clear, and it is certainly clear that America and its allies are violating the Charter in regards to Venezuela. Here is how:
America and its allies claim that their attempt to force the removal of the existing Government of Venezuela is ‘humanitarian’, as defined by the the U.S. and its allied invaders, but not by the U.N. Such alleged ‘humanitarian’ concern as the U.S. asserts is therefore excluded from consideration by the U.N., and is not applicable as being any “justification” for U.S. threat or use of any type of international sanctioins or other coiercive measures, because it is a domestic, and not an international, issue; it falls within “matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.” The U.N. Charter does not allow any nation’s government to punish or threaten to punish some other government because the punishing government alleges that its intended victim-government has violated some ‘humanitarian’ standard, because to allow that would be international anarchy, and no international law at all. Without the U.N. (instead of the U.S. Government) alleging humanitarian violation, there is no such violation in international law, because no single nation possesses any international legal authority, but only the U.N. and its agencies do. In other words: the U.S. Government’s alleged ‘humanitarian’ excuse isn’t even relevant to international law, and it is therefore certainly not suitable as any sort of ‘justification’ to invade — which (invasion or threat of invasion) is what especially concerns international law, and which concern (to prevent any World War III) was the very reason for the U.N.’s creation. The United States, instead of maintaining peace, is threatening world peace, not only directly by threatening, and now santioning, Venezuela, but by doing it outside of any U.N. authorization.
Juan Guaido (the U.S. regime’s chosen dictator of Venezuela) has no authorization under Venezuela’s Constitution to claim to be Venezuela’s ‘interim President’. Though the current President of Venezuela was elected by the nation’s public, and — by contrast — the self-declared ‘interim’ President, Guaido, whom the U.S. and its allies want to replace the nationally elected one, was never elected by the Venezuelan public, the U.S. claims a ‘right’ to force this regime-change to make Guaido Venezuela’s President, and refuses to accept international law as having any bearing on the entire matter, and especially no bearing upon the U.S. regime’s demands, economic sanctions, and military threats, against Venezuela, regarding whom Venezuela’s leaders will be. The U.S. regime holds itself above any international laws, whatsoever. The U.S. Government is now clearly and blatantly a rogue regime.
Mr. Guaido in 2016 was elected by the residents of the Venezuelan region of Vargas to become its Representative in the nation’s unicameral legislature, the National Assembly, and never yet has faced any national Venezuelan election. His record in national public office is therefore almost non-existent, but within the National Assembly itself he nonetheless rose (due to his long-time backing by the U.S. regime) immediately to become elected by its members as the President of that body, the National Assembly. In other words, he was appointed, by the national legislature, immediately after having been elected solely by, and solely to represent, the residents of the state of Vargas. If he were to become installed as ‘interim President’ of the nation, it would be with no clear record on national issues. And it would be with no vote by the national electorate.
Vargas, one of Venezuela’s poorest regions, was predominantly socialist, so Guaido had pretended to be socialist, and he won office on that fraudulent basis, but once in office he became immediately fascist. He was behaving in accord with his being a perfect CIA asset to take over a democratic socialist country that the dictatorial capitalist U.S. regime wants to control. He is acting as a traitor to Venezuela, and certainly outside of and violating Venezuela’s Constitution. So, if he were to become Venezuela’s leader, that would be only by appointment on the part of the legislators, and not by any democratic election by the Venezuelan people, and it would also be in violation of Venezuela’s Supreme Judicial Tribunal. All of this would be in direct violation of Venezuela’s Constitution. The United States and its allies demand this, and say that “All options are on the table,” up to and including a U.S. invasion of Venezuela, in order to achieve their drastic and blatantly unConstitutional change-of-Government in Venezuela.
International law on this matter is clear, though the U.S. regime, of course, rejects international law as having any validity against itself:
On 14 December 1974, the General Assembly of the United Nations finally got around to actually defining the key thing that the U.N. had been created to prevent: international “aggression.” This measure to define “aggression,” being a Resolution by the entire General Assembly, was “non-binding” upon the Security Council, but nonetheless it is binding upon individual nations in any instance in which a case is brought before an international court in order to determine legal consequences of “aggression,” such as fines and reparations for an act (such as America’s having imposed international economic sanctions against Venezuels) by an “aggressor” nation (the U.S.) that, under this definition, constitutes an act of “aggression” by that nation (against Venezuela). Here is this definition, “3314 (XXIX). Definition of Aggression”, as represented here by its central points:
Definition of Aggression
The General Assembly,
Basing itself on the fact that one of the fundamental purposes of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security and to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, …
Article I
Aggression is the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations, as set out in this Definition. …
Article 2
The First use of armed force by a State in contravention of the Charter shall constitute prima facie evidence of an act of aggression although the Security Council may, in conformity with the Charter, conclude that a determination that an act of aggression has been committed would not be justified in the light of other relevant circumstances, including the fact that the acts concerned or their consequences are not of sufficient gravity.
Article 3
Any of the following acts, regardless of a declaration of war, shall, subject to and in accordance with the provisions of article 2, qualify as an act of aggression: …
(f) The action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State;
(g) The sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or mercenaries, which carry out acts of armed force against another State of such gravity as to amount to the acts listed above, or its substantial involvement therein.
The first international court case in which this definition of “aggression” was cited as legal authority was when Nicaragua responded, to Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contra invasion of Nicaragua, by bringing before the International Court of Justice in the Hague a case for “reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by the breaches of obligations under customary international law,” and the International Court of Justice ruled, on 27 June 1986:
https://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/70/070-19860627-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf
- In the course of the written proceedings, the following submissions were presented on behalf of the Government of Nicaragua: …
(c) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has used and is using force and the threat of force against Nicaragua.
(d) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has intervened and is intervening in the internal affairs of Nicaragua.
(e) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has infringed and is infringing the freedom of the high seas and interrupting peaceful maritime commerce.
(f) That the United States, in breach of its obligation under general and customary international law, has killed, wounded and kidnapped and is killing, wounding and kidnapping citizens of Nicaragua.
(g) That, in view of its breaches of the foregoing legal obligations, the United States is under a particular duty to cease and desist immediately:
from all use of force – whether direct or indirect, overt or covert – against Nicaragua, and from all threats of force against Nicaragua. …
- … This description, contained in Article 3, paragraph (g), of the Definition of Aggression annexed to General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX), may be taken to reflect customary international law. The Court sees no reason to deny that, in customary law, the prohibition of armed attacks may apply to the sending by a State of armed bands to the territory of another State, if such an operation, because of its scale and effects, would have been classified as an armed attack rather than as a mere frontier incident had it been carried out by regular armed forces. …
- The principle of non-intervention involves the right of every sovereign State to conduct its affairs without outside interference; though examples of trespass against this principle are not infrequent, the Court considers that it is part and parcel of customary international law. As the Court has observed: “Between independent States, respect for territorial sovereignty is an essential foundation of international relations” (I.C.J. Reports 1949, p. 35), and international law requires political integrity also to be respected. …
- In any event, while the United States might form its own appraisal of the situation as to respect for human rights in Nicaragua, the use of force could not be the appropriate method to monitor or ensure such respect. …
- The Court considers appropriate the request of Nicaragua for the nature and amount of the reparation due to it to be determined in a subsequent phase of the proceedings. …
- The Court considers that it should re-emphasize, in the light of its present findings, what was indicated in the Order of 10 May 1984:
“The right to sovereignty and to political independence possessed by the Republic of Nicaragua, like any other State of the region or of the world, should be fully respected and should not in any way be jeopardized by any military and paramilitary activities which are prohibited by the principles of international law, in particular the principle that States should refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or the political independence of any State.” …
- For these reasons, The Court
(3) By twelve votes to three,
Decides that the United States of America, by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State; …
(5) By twelve votes to three,
Decides that the United States of America, by directing or authorizing overflights of Nicaraguan territory, and by the acts imputable to the United States referred to in subparagraph (4) hereof, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to violate the sovereignty of another State; …
(13) By twelve votes to three,
Decides that the United States of America is under an obligation to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by the breaches of obligations under customary international law enumerated above. …
This understanding, of what an “aggressor” nation is, became further cemented in international law, by the 17 July 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court:
https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/add16852-aee9-4757-abe7-9cdc7cf02886/283503/romestatuteng1.pdf
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
17 July 1998
Article 8 bis3 Crime of aggression
- For the purpose of this Statute, “crime of aggression” means the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.
- For the purpose of paragraph 1, “act of aggression” means the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations. Any of the following acts, regardless of a declaration of war, shall, in accordance with United Nations General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14 December 1974, qualify as an act of aggression: (a) The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof; (b) Bombardment by the armed forces of a State against the territory of another State or the use of any weapons by a State against the territory of another State; (c) The blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State; (d) An attack by the armed forces of a State on the land, sea or air forces, or marine and air fleets of another State; (e) The use of armed forces of one State which are within the territory of another State with the agreement of the receiving State, in contravention of the conditions provided for in the agreement or any extension of their presence in such territory beyond the termination of the agreement; (f) The action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State; (g) The sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or mercenaries, which carry out acts of armed force against another State of such gravity as to amount to the acts listed above, or its substantial involvement therein.
So, now it is also embedded there, too, in international law.
As Wikipedia observes, regarding the landmark international case Nicaragua v. United States, “Nicaragua brought the matter to the U.N. Security Council, where the United States vetoed a resolution (11 to 1, 3 abstentions) calling on all states to observe international law. Nicaragua also turned to the General Assembly, which passed a resolution 94 to 3 calling for compliance with the World Court ruling. Two states, Israel and El Salvador, joined the United States in opposition.” Both of those two countries were being funded by the U.S. Government at the time.
Clearly, consequently, the U.S. is a rogue nation, standing no longer against Adolf Hitler ideologically, but instead actually carrying his torch, leading and allying with any nation that (just as Hitler did in the 1930s and 1940s) invades — directly or via proxies (Hitler’s included Italy, Japan, and secret Nazi agents subverting the countries they all targeted for conquest) — leading the nations that (this time around) the U.S. and its allies target for conquest, after the end of the Soviet Union, such as (for target-nations): Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and ultimately Russia itself. The CIA’s Operation Gladio, and Operation Mockingbird, took over America, after the Nazis’ Gehlen Organization took over the CIA. The goal of world-conquest and global all-encompassing empire, remains the same, but the leading fascist (meaning dictatorial-capitalist) nation this time around isn’t Germany, but America. That’s what NATO and all allies of the U.S. regime are for — an ultimate global and unchallengeable empire, by U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their aim is a fascist government of the world.
In an article, “Vladimir Putin’s basic disagreement with the West”, I presented Russia’s Government as leading the world in support of the laws and principles that are stated in the U.N.’s Charter. The U.S. was shown there to lead the global opposition to that. This article also described the historical origin of that ideological conflict, and traced it especially back to the late-nineteenth-century champion of British imperialism, Cecil Rhodes.
Ingrid Wuerth headlined at lawfareblog on 22 March 2019, “A Post-Human Rights Era? A Reappraisal and a Response to Critics”, and she dealt with this issue not as being — which it basically and inevitably is — one concerning the respective purview of the federal world government, versus that of its constituent or “regional” state governments (or the federal-versus-regional issue); but, instead, as concerning:
The core issue lies in describing politicized and underenforced norms as core features of binding international “law.” The sources of international law have been redefined and loosened so that a very large swath of state conduct is now subject to international human rights law, but that law is overlapping, complex and widely disregarded. Even some of international law’s most sacred proscriptions — jus cogens norms — are routinely violated. The difficulty for international law is a version of the “broken windows” problem: Creating a large set of binding legal norms not treated as law weakens the ability of international law to generate compliance.
In other words: she confused the issue with what isn’t fundamental and intrinsic and distinctive to the actual problem that she claimed to be discussing there. She simply presumed that the U.S. and its allies carry the torch for international law (i.e., for what the U.N. is supposed to represent), instead of to use that torch to burn it all down and replace it with The West’s gang (such as John Bolton honestly declares to be the U.S. regime’s intention — to impose the U.S. Government’s will everywhere). She ignores the reality, and replaces it with The West’s myths — lies. This is no mere “‘broken windows’ problem,” but instead a U.S. assault against the U.N. and international law.
The publics globally recognize that the greatest threat to international peace isn’t any of the Governments (such as Russia) that she condemns, but is instead the U.S. regime itself.
A typical recent example of such U.S. aggression was the U.S.-and-allied bombing of Syria’s Government on 14 April 2018, which was alleged to have been punishment for an alleged sarin gas attack by that Government against residents of the Syrian town of Douma on 7 April 2018 — an alleged attack which Russia’s Government said, the following day, on April 8th, was fictitious, just a lie by the U.S. and its allies. On 14 April 2018 the UK Government (a close ally of the U.S. regime) issued its alleged “position on the legality of UK military action to alleviate the extreme humanitarian suffering of the Syrian people by degrading the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons capability and deterring their further use, following the chemical weapons attack in Douma on 7 April 2018.” It opened with a totally one-sided (and rabidly false) assumption that “The Syrian regime has been killing its own people for seven years” and it blamed Syria’s Government 100%, and not at all its opposition ‘rebels’ (led by the U.S. and its allies via their employing Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Al Nusra, to train and lead those ‘rebels’), for that war. But, on 6 July 2018, the OPCW (Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — the U.N.-authorized agency to investigate this matter) issued its findings, that the U.S.-UK-French ‘justifications’ for the invasion of Syria on 14 April 2018 had been outright fraudulent. And yet, the Western mainstream ‘press’ (the West’s propaganda-agencies) ignored that their own regimes had just done a Hitler-trick against their national publics there — an invason of a foreign country on the basis of lies to their own population. The U.S. regime does that sort of thing routinely, now — not only against Iraq (which invasion in 2003 blatantly violating international law was likewise never punished).
Also on 14 April 2018, the AP headlined “UN rejects Russian attempt to condemn US aggression in Syria”, and reported that this rejection was by the U.N. Security Council, not by the General Assembly, and that the U.S. and its Security Council allies had voted against and defeated Russia’s proposal. But after the 6 July 2018 widely unpublicized OPCW findings, that the U.S.-UK-French ‘justifications’ for the invasion of Syria on 14 April 2018 had been outright fraudulent, the U.S.-and-allied invasion of Syria on 14 April had, indeed, been a war-crime, and was no longer only an action contravening the U.N.’s Charter. It was an invasion that was based solely upon lies by the U.S. and its allies. It wasn’t only an invasion that the U.N. had not authorized.
The West’s hypocrisy is increasingly recognized to be the emperor who has no clothes; but this emperor’s agents nonetheless continue the hypocritical distortions and lies. There is less and less of a market for those distortions and lies, except among the agents and publications of the owners and controllers of the vehicles that spread them. Global publics are increasingly coming to recognize the reality of U.S.-and-allied aggression, despite those swarms of agents of the U.S. empire.
It’ll be either the U.N., or else the U.S. empire. Which will it be? Internationally, this is the question. It’s not a ‘broken windows’ issue. That’s just for the regime’s propagandists.
The article is personally submitted for publishing by the author.
Author: Eric Zuesse
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