US strikes on – and the announced temporary takeover of – Venezuela violate both the United Nations Charter and the Christian principles on which it is based, a University of Notre Dame scholar told OSV News.
On 3 January, the US carried out what President Donald Trump, writing on his social media platform Truth Social, called “a large scale strike against Venezuela,” capturing that country’s President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
But Trump’s stated plan at a press conference that day to temporarily take over Venezuela, sidelining the popular democratic opposition to Maduro, and seize Venezuela’s oil are “two very serious statements in violation of international law,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, professor of law and international peace studies at the University of Notre Dame.
“No country has the right to take control of another country,” she said. “The only way such action could be lawful is if the United Nations Security Council authorised it.
And the UN Security Council is not going to authorise a US administration over Venezuela.” She emphasised “basic Christian teachings” underlie “the most important rules of international law” from national sovereignty to human rights to conflict resolution.
She said, “Our teaching, the teaching of Jesus Christ, was first and foremost peace. … He also plainly cared about and taught us all to see the human dignity of every person and to treat them with human dignity.”