JULY 10, 2020
On
January 9, 2020, Ambassador Karen Pierce—the United Kingdom’s permanent
representative to the United Nations—spoke at a
meeting on the UN Charter.
“Nobody could accuse the founding members of a lack of ambition when they
drafted the Charter,” Ambassador Pierce said. “But at times, the United Nations
has often suffered from an almost unbridgeable gap between the power of its
central vision and the actual actions it has been able to carry out.”
Ambassador Pierce said that she did not just mean that the United Nations’
agencies had failed, but that the member states had failed as well. 1945
charter, she said, “makes very clear the emphasis on states to cooperate, to
harmonize actions to attain common ends.”
Ambassador Kelly
Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, spoke at the
same meeting. She praised the charter and called upon the member states of the
UN to bring its values into the world. However, Ambassador Craft said, “On far too
many occasions, we have seen nations that are parties to the Charter suppress
human rights, undermine the sovereignty of their neighbors, harm their own
citizens, and even deny the right of other nations to exist.”
These are powerful words from Ambassadors Pierce and Craft, but they are
hollow. They mean nothing. Over the past few decades, Western countries—such as
the United Kingdom, but more so the United States of America—have flouted
international laws and failed to even try to uphold the high-minded principles
of the charter. Most recently, the United States has attempted to muzzle the
International Criminal Court (ICC) as it has pursued a perfectly reasonable
investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan; and the United Kingdom has denied
Venezuela its sovereign right to gold held in the Bank of England. In both
cases, the United States and the UK have undermined the sovereignty of nations
and mutilated international law. The lawlessness of the governments of Prime
Minister Boris Johnson and President Donald Trump is better explored through
their actual practices than through the high-minded speeches of their
ambassadors to the United Nations.
Suffocation
of the International Criminal Court
In March, the
International Criminal Court gave permission
to ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to proceed with an investigation into war
crimes in Afghanistan (committed by all sides, including the United States).
The United States government was furious. In June, Trump issued Executive
Order 13928 on “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Associated With the
International Criminal Court.” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National
Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Attorney
General William Barr announced that the U.S. government would target ICC officials involved in the inquiry. Visas
for the United States would be denied not only to these officials but to their
families as well.
The UN special
rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers—Diego García-Sayán (a
former Peruvian minister)—released a sharp statement defending
the ICC. “The implementation of such policies by the U.S. has the sole aim of
exerting pressure on an institution whose role is to seek justice against
crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of
aggression,” he said. The U.S. attack on the ICC prosecutors was so aggressive
that García-Sayán said that this was a “further step in pressuring the ICC and
coercing its officials in the context of independent and objective
investigations and impartial judicial proceedings.” In other words, the United
States was using its power to suffocate the ICC.
Earlier, in May
2020, Secretary of State Pompeo condemned the ICC,
saying it was a “political body, not a judicial institution.” That was in light
of the ICC's move to investigate Israel for its violations of international law
regarding the occupation of the Palestinians. If the ICC proceeds with any such
investigation, Pompeo said, the United States will “exact consequences.” This
is gangland talk.
Suffocation
of Venezuela
Venezuela’s
Central Bank has $1.8
billion in gold in the Bank of England. This money is owned by the government
of Venezuela; this is not contested by anyone. When Venezuela sought access to
its gold, the Bank of England refused to honor the request. In May 2020, the
government of Nicolás Maduro took the Bank of England to court, asking the
British judicial system to honor the contract it made with the Central Bank of
Venezuela. President Maduro said that his government wanted to sell the gold
and send the funds to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which
would buy necessary supplies for the country to fight COVID-19. The UK High
Court now ruled that Venezuela cannot access its own gold.
The finding is
entirely political. Judge Nigel Teare, on behalf of the UK High Court, says that
the government of the United Kingdom does not recognize President Maduro, but
instead, the UK government had “unequivocally recognized opposition leader Juan
Guaidó as president.” This was exactly the argument made in
March by the International Monetary Fund—pressured by the U.S. Treasury
Department—to deny Venezuela’s request for emergency financing. Further, Judge
Teare said that there is “no room for recognition of Mr. Guaidó as de jure
president and of Mr. Maduro as de facto president.” This last point is
essential because it means that even if Maduro controls the institutions of
the presidency—as he does—the United Kingdom will not extend this to provide
Maduro with legal recognition. But how the court decided to endow Guaidó with
“de jure” or legal recognition is not self-evident.
Juan Guaidó has never contested the post of the presidency in any
election, nor has he received a mandate to be the president; he anointed
himself in January 2019. Guaidó’s claim was hastily recognized by the United
States, which has long played a role in trying to unseat Maduro from the
presidency and roll back the gains made by the Bolivarian Revolution
inaugurated by Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez. It is true that about 50
countries around the world—most of them U.S. allies—have said that they
recognize Juan Guaidó as the president of Venezuela, although these are a
minority among the 193 United Nations member states; most countries in the world continues to recognize Maduro as the president.
Judge Teare’s statement implies that the UK High Court recognizes a head
of government based on the policy of the UK government. In other words, the UK
government—which has no official role in the election of the Venezuelan
president—has the power to control who is the president of a sovereign country,
namely Venezuela. What decision the UK government makes, therefore, is far more
important than the views of the people of Venezuela.
It is an odd business. The Venezuelan ambassador to the UK is Rocío del
Valle Maneiro, who has been appointed by President Maduro. This should be
enough proof that the UK sees the government of President Maduro as the
legitimate government, but this was not enough for Judge Teare.
In both the case of the sanctions against the ICC and the theft of
Venezuela’s gold, the United States, and the UK demonstrate their disregard for
international institutions and for international law. This kind of lawlessness
is precisely the opposite of everything Ambassadors Pierce and Craft said about
the UN Charter, a document of immense gravity. Better to follow the charter
than talking about it with empty words.
Vijay Prashad’s most recent book is No
Free Left: The Futures of Indian Communism (New Delhi: LeftWord Books,
2015).
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