Humanitarian Intervention in Tehran and Self-Defense in Caracas!

Who did not welcome the removal of Nicolás Maduro, the dictator who forced eight million of his compatriots, or a quarter of Venezuela's population, into exile?

But does this mean that the American administration was within its rights in carrying out this audacious raid in the vicinity of Caracas? According to the 1945 United Nations Charter, which enshrines national sovereignty and guarantees peace between nations, a country can only resort to armed force in two cases: self-defense and the adoption of a Security Council resolution authorizing it. A country can, however, intervene in the territory of another to respond to the urgent request of its legitimate government: Wasn't it that US Marines landed on our shores in 1958 at the request of President Camille Chamoun?

Self-defense according to Article 51

Another perspective: Bruno Retailleau, a French senator, approved the January 3 camisade on the pretext that the Venezuelan president had become an accomplice to drug traffickers. In his eyes, the capture of Maduro and his wife by the United States was merely an act of self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

It is difficult to subscribe to such a thesis: drug trafficking does not constitute, in the eyes of international jurisprudence, an act of “armed aggression” that would justify said self-defense. The Republican leader would have done better to invoke humanitarian intervention, as a Donald Trump, horrified by the repression raging in Iran, would not fail to do.

Is there an obligation for states to intervene?

Humanitarian intervention cheerfully transgresses the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of a third country, as was the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-95) and Kosovo (1999). Military operations were carried out there, not at the request of a legitimate government as in Lebanon in 1958, but AGAINST said government. Jean-Baptiste Vilmer defines this “war in the name of humanity” as: “The use of force by a state with the aim of stopping serious human rights violations against individuals who are not nationals of the intervening state and without the consent of local authorities.”

Proponents of this doctrine justify it in the name of urgency. And the United States could proceed in this way in Iran; they could argue the denunciation made by the UN Human Rights Council on January 23 of the “unprecedented repression” exercised in the land of the ayatollahs. As of that date, more than 5,000 deaths and 25,000 arrests led High Commissioner Volker Türk to call on Tehran to reconsider its position and to end its “brutal repression, including summary trials and disproportionate sentences.”

However, since then, the death toll has risen and we are talking about more than 30,000 dead!

A 'humanitarian strike' in the name of freedom!

Can the extent of fundamental rights violations justify humanitarian interference by the American war machine? In theory, intervention is only necessary in the face of massive and uninterrupted human rights violations. If this is not the case, should one refrain from acting until the horror has reached a certain ceiling, for example, 50,000 victims?

It is understood that if a “humanitarian strike” were to assist Iranian demonstrators, it would be tainted by some breaches of the rule of law, breaches that punctilious jurists would not hesitate to decry. But what, it is about deliverance and we do not mince words! We do not grant the benefit of the doubt to those who trample on the law, no more than we grant freedom to the enemies of freedom!