If kidnapping presidents becomes acceptable, the rules are finished

THIS article is written in response to claims that cross-border military force may be justified by domestic criminal indictments or disputed elections.

- SHERWYN SEAN CUPIDO-WEAICH

THIS combination of file pictures shows US President Donald Trump and Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela demanded an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Saturday to discuss the US military strikes on the country, amid uncertainty over the whereabouts of Maduro.

(AFP)

Such arguments, if left unchallenged, risk normalising a dangerous erosion of the United Nations Charter's authority at a moment when conflicts in Ukraine and rising tensions around Taiwan already place the international system under severe strain. The purpose of this piece is not to defend any government, but to defend the legal framework that protects all states from coercion by the powerful.

There is one rule that prevents the world from sliding into permanent instability: states may not use force to settle political disputes. That rule sits at the heart of the UN Charter, drafted after two world wars to stop power, not principle, from deciding who governs whom.

"If a powerful state can seize a foreign president by force, sovereignty becomes conditional."

Reports that the US used force inside Venezuela to seize a sitting president, defended by references to criminal charges, electoral illegitimacy, and "law enforcement", strike directly at that rule. These are not technical legal debates. Under international law, these justifications do not work.