US Relied on Illegal Sanctions to Seize Venezuelan Oil Tanker |
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“We have just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually,” Donald Trump told reporters on December 10, describing the escalation of his apparently impending illegal war and regime change in Venezuela. Attorney General Pam Bondi ceremoniously released a video clip of the U.S. Marines and National Guard rappelling down from two helicopters onto the tanker.
In seizing the “Skipper,” the Trump administration relied on sanctions the U.S. had imposed on the Venezuelan oil tanker. Bondi said a seizure warrant was executed by the U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, Pentagon, and Homeland Security Investigations. “For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” she stated.
But those sanctions are illegal and cannot provide a lawful basis for the U.S. to seize this vessel.
Although claims in the corporate media that Venezuelan oil is subject to “international sanctions” are ubiquitous, nothing could be further from the truth.
When a country takes it upon itself to impose sanctions without Security Council approval, they are called unilateral coercive measures, which violate the UN Charter.
The U.S. government imposed unilateral coercive measures on the oil tanker in 2022 for its alleged ties to Iran. But the UN Charter empowers only the Security Council to impose and enforce sanctions. Article 41 specifies:
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.
“Under international law, we cannot lawfully enforce U.S. domestic law in a foreign state’s territorial sea (12 nautical miles) or contiguous zone (next 12 miles out, to total 24) without the coastal state’s consent,” Jordan Paust, professor emeritus at University of Houston Law Center and former captain in the U.S. Army JAG Corps, told Truthout.
The seizure of the oil tanker by the U.S. armed forces constituted an unlawful use of force in violation of the UN Charter.
Francisco Rodriguez, senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, concurs. “The US has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory,” he