Time for US to stop violating UN charter
The issue today is not the character of the government of Venezuela. The issue is whether any member state — by force, coercion, or economic strangulation — has the right to determine Venezuela’s political future or to exercise control over its affairs.
This question goes directly to Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The Security Council must decide whether that prohibition is to be upheld or abandoned. Abandoning it would carry consequences of the gravest kind.
Since 1947, the United States foreign policy has repeatedly employed force, covert action and political manipulation to bring about regime changes in other countries. In her book Covert Regime Change (2018), political scientist Lindsey O’Rourke documents 70 regime-change operations attempted by the US between 1947 and 1989 alone.
These practices did not end with the Cold War. Since 1989, major US regime-change operations undertaken without authorization by the Security Council have included Iraq in 2003,Libya in 2011, Syria from 2011, Honduras in 2009, Ukraine in 2014 and Venezuela from 2002 onward.
The methods employed include open warfare, covert intelligence operations, instigation of unrest, support for armed groups, manipulation of mass and social media, bribery of military and civilian officials, targeted assassinations, false-flag operations and economic warfare aimed at collapsing civilian life. These measures are illegal under the UN Charter, and they typically result in violence, lethal conflict, political instability and deep suffering of the civilian population.
The US efforts for regime change in Venezuela span two decades. In April 2002, the US approved an attempted coup against the Venezuelan government. In the 2010s, the US funded civil society groups engaged in anti-government protests. When the government cracked down, the US imposed sanctions. In 2015, US president Barack Obama declared Venezuela to be “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US”.
In 2017, on the margins of the UN General Assembly, US President Donald Trump openly discussed the option of invading Venezuela to overthrow the government. From 2017 to 2020, the US imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company. Between 2016 and 2020, oil production fell by 75 percent, and real GDP per capita (PPP) declined by 62 percent.
The UN General Assembly has repeatedly voted overwhelmingly against such unilateral coercive measures. Under international law, only the Security Council has the authority to impose such sanctions.
On January 23, 2019, the US unilaterally recognized Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela. Five days later, on January 28, 2019, it froze approximately $7 billion of Venezuelan sovereign assets held abroad and gave Guaidó authority over certain assets.
In the past year, the US has carried out bombing operations in seven countries, none of which were authorized by the Security Council or undertaken in lawful self-defense under the Charter. The targeted countries include Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and now Venezuela. In the past month, Trump has issued direct threats against at least six UN member states, including Colombia, Denmark, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria and, of course, Venezuela.
Members of the Security Council are not called upon to judge Nicolás Maduro or assess whether the recent US attack and ongoing naval quarantine of Venezuela result in freedom or in subjugation. They are called upon to defend international law, and specifically the UN Charter.
The realist school of international relations accurately describes the condition of international anarchy as “the tragedy of great power politics”. Its conclusion is that international anarchy leads to tragedy. In the aftermath of World War I, the League of Nations was created to end the tragedy through the application of international law. Yet the world’s leading nations failed to defend international law in the 1930s, leading to another global war.
The UN emerged from that catastrophe as humanity’s second great effort to place international law above anarchy. In the words of the Charter, the UN was created “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.”
Given that we are in the nuclear age, failure cannot be repeated. Humanity would perish. There would be no third chance.
To fulfill its responsibilities under the Charter, the Security Council should immediately affirm that the US shall immediately cease and desist from all explicit and implicit threats or use of force against Venezuela. It shall terminate its naval quarantine and all related coercive military measures undertaken without authorization by the Security Council. The US shall immediately withdraw its military forces from within and along the perimeter of Venezuela. The UN Secretary-General shall immediately appoint a Special Envoy, mandated to engage relevant Venezuelan and international stakeholders and to report back to the Security Council within 14 days with recommendations consistent with the UN Charter. All member states shall refrain from unilateral threats, coercive measures or armed actions undertaken outside the authority of the Security Council, in strict conformity with the Charter.
Peace and the survival of humanity depend on whether the UN Charter remains a living instrument of international law or is allowed to wither into irrelevance. That is the choice before the world today.
Jeffrey D. Sachs delivered a statement to the United Nations Security Council on 5 Janueary 2026, regarding the US strikes on Venezuela and illegal “capture” of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The original statement has been slightly edited for its original publication in China Daily.
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They destroyed the charter by allowing Trump to take charge of a plan for Gaza -really it is Netanyahu's plan as the tail is definitely wagging the dog. They totally lost the plot with that resolution. It is the threat of the US pulling out of the funding of the UN and the structures for international justice. That threat is real and the rest of the world need to have a conversation about having a plan for the US pulling the funding of the UN and the ICC. The UK actually threatened to pull out of the ICC if arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Galant were issued. Threats from the US put Algeria and Russia off any dissenting votes so they did not veto something that clearly was an illegal plan. Im not sure you can get much lower than that. I have nothing against Guterres but he is a useless secretary general. Where is he? He should be at the Border demanding they let aid in and filming it. Some people have been claiming there is a ceasefire. Only one side stopped killing and it wasn't the fascist IDF. Im disgusted, not at the collapsing of international law but the total lack of pushback. Sorry Francesca, Im not saying you haven't been doing a brilliant job because you have been doing a fabulous job on behalf of the victims. There needs to be far more pushback and I have switched to independent journalism in a total way. Palestinians have the right to self defence. They also have the right to have weapons to use to protect themselves. The staggering lack of respect for the Palestinians and their right to a state in their own country and have the right to self determination. They are defending themselves as any state would. The fact that the perpetrator was deciding that its defenceless 'enemy' needed to lay down their weapons, is just another example of 'every accusation is a confession'.
They have twisted and wrung out the truth. I am still recovering from the November 17th vote at the UN and it didn't help that it was my birthday and so it will remain etched in my mind. I felt the UN was doing far more good things than bad stuff, my uncle worked for the UN in Geneva for many years. But lately it has become screamingly obvious that the UN urgently needs reform. At the moment with a wannabe mafia boss as POTUS, the UN has proven to be impotent at best. It needs to accept that it has a colonial structure. The permanent members of the security council, are the biggest empires that gave themselves the veto. This structure needs to be reformed urgently. The Palestinians have been failed by the UN right from the start. Zionists were welcomed by the Palestinians after the war, when no other country wanted to take jewish refugees. They welcomed them in to their homes and looked after them as that who Palestinians are. They are some of the loveliest people in the world. They are kind, loving, generous, highly educated, all round beautiful people. The refugees one day then literally locked the Palestinian families out of their own homes and they just took after their homes and possessions. That was right back at the start. It shows what vile people they were from day one. The agreement to allow the creation of a jewish state on Palestinian land, was supposed to be accompanied by the creation of a Palestinian state. Zionism was fascism dressed up and so these far right extremists took over and the Palestinian State was never created and the UN began on its path of allowing Israel to be above the law. No big enough attempt was made to enforce the agreement. The Palestinians were abandoned to their fate with these white supremacists. Apparently all their obsessions with sexual assault is about the need for total domination. They believe that Israelis must have babies with Israelis so as not to dilute their 'race'. So they are a thoroughly inbred society from all these generations of zionists. A dangerous mix of ingredients.
The Palestinians have been abandoned by the UN and by most of the world's leaders. But they haven't done anything at all to deserve this life. They are intelligent, resourceful people who don't deserve to be subjected to fascists killing them. This has to be sorted out and that involves removing the US from any part in getting a deal through diplomacy. They are partisan. They have always been the spanners.