The US government has confiscated an airplane reportedly used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, claiming it violates Washington’s sanctions against Caracas, CNN reported on Monday.
The US has charged Maduro with drug trafficking and refused to recognize his victory in the last two Venezuelan presidential elections.
“Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters. We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions,” an unnamed Washington official told CNN, which first reported the story on Monday.
According to CNN, the plane is worth around $13 million and was seized in cooperation with Dominican authorities.
…no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions
A hypocritical statement if there ever was one since US sanctions can be considered a violation of international laws. I’m sure the only reason they don’t impose them from the UNSC is because they could (and likely would) be vetoed by other members (and because the US is imposing sanctions on UNSC members.
The legality of economic sanctions is contested, with debates varying based on the scope of the sanctions, their goals, their effects, the authorities under which they are imposed, and many other factors.
One school of thought holds that it is only the United Nations Security Council that can legally impose sanctions (with that power derived from Chapter VII of the UN Charter). Unilateral sanctions, or multilateral sanctions not endorsed by the UNSC, in contrast, violate the principle of state sovereignty and undermine the international rule of law. According to former UN Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy, “the resort by a major power of its dominant position in the international financial arena against its own allies to cause economic hardship to the economy of sovereign States is contrary to international law, and inevitably undermines the human rights of their citizens.”
Economic sanctions imposed unilaterally by the US may also violate the Charter of the Organization of American States, to which the US is a party. Articles 19 and 20 of the Charter state:
“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. … 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.”
Other arguments against the legality of economic sanctions are based on their impacts. Given the significant harm to civilian populations, many economic sanctions can be said to violate international human rights law and treaty obligations, such as the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and several UN Human Rights Council Resolutions. Further, as described by Jeffrey Sachs and CEPR’s Mark Weisbrot, “both the Hague and Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signatory, prohibit collective punishment of civilians. Although these treaties apply only during wartime, UN human rights experts have argued that it does not make sense that civilians should only have this protection during situations of armed conflict.”
On the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Conventions, in 2024, 40 legal groups and 200 individual lawyers, including top scholars, sent a letter to President Biden calling on the US to end the use of broad unilateral sanctions, which they consider to violate international law, and amount to “collective punishment.”
To the extent that particular sanctions violate international law, they erode international legal norms and undermine aspirations toward a rules-based international order.
Many US sanctions rest on shaky foundations under domestic law as well. Most are imposed under the IEEPA, which requires declaration of a national emergency regarding an “unusual and extraordinary threat … to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.” In many cases, such a claim — that, for example, the political situations in Venezuela or Zimbabwe somehow constitute an “extraordinary threat” to US national security — has little to no basis.
US rules-based international order is when you can pick and choose which laws apply to your own actions.
Dominican republic L. are they stupid or what? this only hinders their own relations with venezuela.
You don’t seize an airplane when it’s not your country or property. You are just stealing.
US stole an airplane belonging to the head of state of a sovereign nation.
“Barbarians raid another state for their plane”
so…venezuela is truly sanctioned? it wasn’t another lie of “the left”?
Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters. We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions,
Love to break laws of countries I’m not a fucking a citizen of or living in.
Only the us is fucking insane enough to use this logic
I think the word they’re looking for is
stealsLiteral schoolyard bully behavior on display here. “No one is above the law, and the law is what I say it is.”
I hope that someday, every single theft, every single extortion by the US is reparated back in full (and then some). And every single damned dollar they have sent out, they must also be made to honor in some fashion.
I’m not even talking about revenge here (though hell if I’d care if it were to happen at this point). Reparations are owed to the entire world, and if the US ceases to exist (because all of its land is owed to its indigenous peoples who have had everything stolen from them for centuries, and because it has stolen more than it itself has) then all the better for it. They owe everything and they shall pay everything, and if it requires the entire world to descend on the devil empire to restore what was taken from them, so be it. Not one ill-gotten penny should remain in the coffers of the west, not until their victims are made whole, and then mercy (that they have never had for others) can be considered. The entire world needs to unite on this principle, to ensure that the crackerverse never gets haughty ideas of world domination again- that even the damnable thought of it never rises again.
The US/collective west best make amends while they still have the time, and while they still haven’t pushed past the point of no return. But they won’t. And they will pay for it and pay in full, they must be made to.
Preach 100%
Yes, don’t you see, tankie? Maduro himself was smuggling drugs in with his private plane!
Yup! The head of state himself is so desperate for money that he’s smuggling drugs into a nation that is brutally sanctioning him when if he wanted to get involved in the narco trade there’s 4 different nations bordering them to do it in. That’s right, Tankie!
‘no one is above the law’… the level of self-importance here is actually insane.
No one is above USA law is what they want to say
And no one is above the US law, except the US and their allies is what they’re thinking but hope doesn’t get around, cuz that would really put a wet blanket on the whole freedom scam.
World police, but they don’t go after their own oligarchs.
So, just regular police behaviour.
US has charged Maduro with drug trafficking
Lmao they’re still going with this
That is the policy of Pax Americana to blame Communist/Socialist government for every problems in the respective country even when all evidences point to other causes.
Rotten empire
Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters.
We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law
What law? There’s a law on the books where you can take a plane belonging to a foreign government while it’s located in a third country because you don’t like them?
The claim is the plane was purchased in the US and then exported to Venezuela in violation of domestic export controls
Very cool and legal
