In connection with the Venezuelan National Militia enlistment day, we spoke with Ivonne Téllez, an expert in international law, to analyze the legal and political scope of this initiative within the context of national defense and the country's sovereignty. teleSUR
00:00To continue talking more about what is happening right now in Venezuela, let's welcome international law expert Yvonne Tellez.
00:07Welcome, Yvonne, to another briefing of From the South.
00:11Luis Alberto, enchanted to be here.
00:14It's always our pleasure.
00:16So, Yvonne, today we're having this National Enlistment Day in Venezuela,
00:21something that was called by President Nicolás Maduro yesterday, Friday,
00:25to prove, to show the unity of the Venezuelan people in the defense of their homeland
00:30in the face of the aggressions that are taking place recently from the U.S. government.
00:35What can you tell us about the importance of a day like today?
00:40Well, of course, it is of due importance because Venezuelans under the beginning of a threat,
00:52of a use of force have all the legal and sovereign rights to prepare themselves in case of an attack.
01:04That's, of course, a scenario that we don't want to see, but under the current actions
01:13and the narrative that the U.S. is bringing to the tabloids and the media
01:20and the official responses and discourses that the U.S. has deployed,
01:26we can see the beginning of a threat of the use of force.
01:33Under these actions, Venezuela has all the sovereign and legal right to prepare itself.
01:42One of the narratives that have been imposed by Western hegemonic media mandated by the U.S. government
01:49is there are many narratives of misinformation of the Venezuelan reality,
01:54and one of them is an apparent lack of trust in the Venezuelan government
01:58that the people do not support the Venezuelan government.
02:01Yet we see images that we are seeing today in the different Bolivar squares and military headquarters
02:05where the enlistment is taking place.
02:08And lots of people going in from all ages to sign and to express that they are willing to fight
02:14in the defense of their homeland.
02:16Do you believe that if those narratives were true, if they truly did not support the government,
02:21could images like this happen?
02:24Definitely not. And I think we have to separate three issues that take account here in this situation.
02:35First of all, what happens within a sovereign country is a matter of that country.
02:44That means that the principle of non-interference has to come along and has to be a baseline for the actions.
02:54In this case, first of all, I'm answering your question.
02:58Yes, of course, I agree with you that under the support that we are seeing,
03:04that means that definitely the government holds civilian support.
03:13And if, even if, and I want to make this point clear under the international law perspective,
03:20even if the government didn't have that support,
03:25it doesn't mean that any foreign country or international organization could enter into the territory
03:35to make decisions about its political, economic, social, cultural system.
03:44That is, the independence and the sovereign independence of any state has to be respected.
03:52So, answering your question, yes, of course, there is an enormous support and that's evident.
03:58But, however, even if it didn't have, I mean, I'm talking about Venezuela itself and its government,
04:06even if it didn't have that support, that's an internal affair
04:11that doesn't have to be questioned or doesn't have to be or to fall into a foreign interference.
04:25You were saying no one has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the country
04:29and this is enshrining the UN Charter and international law, as you were saying.
04:34Then, does these actions put more into question,
04:37because they are already being highly questioned by the Global South and many countries,
04:41the validity, the currency of the international institutions that are supposed to safeguard these rights,
04:48that we see a country, the U.S., openly, because it's not covered,
04:54openly saying that they're going to do something that is clearly illegal
04:57and yet we see no response coming from these international, traditional, in a way,
05:02international institutions that are supposed to condemn these actions.
05:05How can we analyze this in the face of other organizations that have come out and condemned it,
05:10like Al-Batisipi and many other countries that have condemned what the U.S. is right now doing
05:14in the Caribbean fighting Venezuela?
05:17Yes, and I think your question is of high importance,
05:23because there are two main things at stake here.
05:27One of those is the law of the sea, yes, and the other one is the use ad bellum,
05:38that means the use of force and the regulation of the use of force,
05:42that is public international law.
05:44So, in this case, what we're seeing, there's something that we have to take into account,
05:49and what has been condemned.
05:51On the first place, the U.S. naval presence of Venezuela, and I'm talking about
06:01of the territorial baseline of Venezuela, is not per se unlawful.
06:08And I'm talking about the 12 nautical miles.
06:13But, however, and this is what I want to highlight,
06:18what is not permitted under the law of sea, and under international law,
06:23is the fact that there's a narrative, I'm sorry, about an unlawful threat of use of force.
06:33Because even what can be done under what the U.S. is saying,
06:40is that in high seas, the U.S. can, yes, of course,
06:45take action against illegal vessels that are at high seas,
06:52but within the territory of a state, or even close to the borderline of the territory of a state,
07:01that calls for hostile actions, that has been said, that's under the United Nations Charter,
07:10that also has been said and stated by the International Court of Justice,
07:17with previous jurisprudence, regarding that the U.S., under this case, could not claim, for example, self-defense,
07:28or could not claim just the rhetoric of international security because it's threatening the territorial baseline
07:40and the territorial seas, I mean, the territory of the high seas of Venezuela.
07:50So that means that whatever the U.S. wants to do against probable terrorist organization has to be done in the high seas,
08:01because using, for example, unlabeling the actions against foreign terrorist organization does not by itself create an international law license to use force.
08:15So under this umbrella, or under this legal umbrella, what we expect, of course, is the international condemnation of these actions,
08:25because this is a possible international armed conflict that could take place between these two states.
08:37And, yes, we're seeing that the Global South is condemning because, of course, this has to do with this traditional political and economic blockade
08:50and condemnation that the U.S. has been leading for all these years that the regime has been before the Venezuelan government.
09:05But that is something completely different. That is a political division that has nothing to do with what international law says can be and can't be done.
09:19Thank you very much, Yvonne, for your input, hearing from the South, as always.
09:25Thank you. Thank you very much, Luis Alberto, for the invitation.
09:28It's a pleasure to have you. We're going to stay in touch for upcoming debates and to continue following up on everything that is happening.
