By Mel Gurtov
Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
The illegality of US intervention in Venezuela has been amply cited with reference to its attacks on alleged drug boats, its declaration of an oil blockade, and its kidnapping of Venezuela’s leader. When it comes to the US invasion, I have not seen reference to US violations of the fundamental document that governs relations among the countries of the Americas: the 1948 Treaty of Bogotá, formally known as the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS). All countries in the Americas, including the US which was a founding member, are signatories to this document.
The treaty is explicit on respect for the principles of nonintervention and nonaggression. Article 2, which is concerned with the purposes of the treaty, includes these items:
b) To promote and consolidate representative democracy, with due respect for the principle of nonintervention;
c) To prevent possible causes of difficulties and to ensure the pacific settlement of disputes that may arise among the Member States;
d) To provide for common action on the part of those States in the event of aggression . . .
Article 3, on the organization’s principles, says:
a) International law is the standard of conduct of States in their reciprocal relations;
b) International order consists essentially of respect for the personality, sovereignty, and independence of States, and the faithful fulfillment of obligations derived from treaties and other sources of international law . . .
e) Every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its political, economic, and social system and to organize itself in the way best suited to it, and has the duty to abstain from intervening in the affairs of another State . . .
h) An act of aggression against one American State is an act of aggression against all the other American States . . .
Finally, and most pointedly, Articles 19-22 make absolutely clear the prohibition against intervention and the use of force or other coercive measures:
Article 19: No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, and cultural elements.
Article 20: No State may use or encourage the use of coercive measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another State and obtain from it advantages of any kind.
Article 21: The territory of a State is inviolable; it may not be the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or of other measures of force taken by another State, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatever. No territorial acquisitions or special advantages obtained either by force or by other means of coercion shall be recognized.
Article 22: The American States bind themselves in their international relations not to have recourse to the use of force, except in the case of self‐defense in accordance with existing treaties or in fulfillment thereof.
The United States has breached every one of these articles as well as the United Nations Charter’s prohibition against “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” It is an outlaw administration that should be brought before the OAS, the UN, and international courts to answer for its crimes against Venezuela. Future articles of impeachment of Donald Trump should include these treaty violations, which are making the US an international pariah.
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.
