Introduction
On September 11, 2019, twelve states parties invoked the Inter-American Treaty on Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), because they considered the crisis in Venezuela to have a destabilizing impact on the peace and security of the hemisphere.Footnote 1 Venezuela was one of the twelve, voting in favor; this was because, on April 9, 2019, the Organization of American States (OAS) formally recognized Juan Guaido's representative, Gustavo Tarre, in lieu of Nicolas Maduro's Ambassador. At the OAS General Assembly in June, Tarre's appointment was approved in a much contested and heated session.Footnote 2 The OAS has thirty-five member states and approximately one-third of its membership supported the invocation of the TIAR. The TIAR is the OAS's mutual defense pact; it was last invoked following the events of September 11, 2001. Article 5 of the NATO Charter, calling for collective action in the case of an armed attack on one member, is derived from Article 3 of the TIAR.Footnote 3 Following invocation of the TIAR, the Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs (the OAS equivalent to the UN Security Council, but without veto power) held its 30th meeting in New York City during the UN General Assembly. The result of that meeting was the adoption of the Resolution under consideration here.
Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, has been in a political, social, and economic crisis for a long time. The crisis is characterized by hyperinflation, drastic shortages of food and medicine, and excessive use of force in repressing protests and opponents, provoking an exodus of over four million people from the country by the end of 2019.
Historical Context
The situation in Venezuela provides an opportunity to examine whether international organizations can act effectively when a member state is in crisis. What, if anything, should or could an international organization do to ameliorate or end the crisis? As regards the case of Venezuela, the OAS used all the tools in its toolbox, to no avail at present. Some historical background is required.
Hugo Chavez, who served as President from 1999 until his death in 2013, sought to bring about a “Bolivarian revolution,” akin to the Cuban revolution, in Venezuela. In 1992, Chavez—who came from a military background—participated in a coup attempt against President Carlos Andres Perez and served two years in prison until he was pardoned. After his release, he formed a political party, and in 1999 he was elected President. He was reelected in 2000, 2006, and 2012, each time with more than 55 percent of the vote. He provided Central America and small Caribbean islands, inter alia, with preferential oil and fuel sales. He instituted social programs, attempted to redistribute oil wealth and advocated an end to corruption. Most importantly, the poverty rate in Venezuela dropped by 20 percent during his administration. At the same time, his government became more authoritarian as he sought and achieved greater control over the three branches of government.
In 2002, approximately one million people marched in Caracas against his leftist agenda and demanded his resignation. The violence grew into an attempted coup, but Chavez was restored to power a few days later. The experience made him clamp down harshly on his opponents. On September 11, 2012, Venezuela denounced the American Convention, a human rights treaty, claiming unfair treatment by the OAS. After Chavez died in 2013, before beginning his fourth term, Vice President Nicolas Maduro assumed power and a special presidential election was held, which Maduro won with 50.62 percent of the vote.
Under Maduro, shortages and decreased living standards led to more protests. Maduro's popularity plummeted and the 2015 election for members of the National Assembly (NA) brought the opposition to power in the legislature, which then asked the OAS to apply the Inter-American Democratic Charter (IADC) to Venezuela. In 2017, the Supreme Court, which was controlled by Maduro, issued two judgments that stripped the members of the NA of their parliamentary immunity and nullified their acts, creating a constitutional crisis.Footnote 4 The Supreme Court accused the NA of acts of “treason” that would be subject to military trials and coopted the legislature's responsibilities. For the first time, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro invoked the IADC and called for an OAS emergency meeting to determine whether Venezuela should be suspended from the OAS.Footnote 5 The OAS meeting failed to reach consensus because of the unwillingness of the Caribbean states to interfere in Venezuela's internal affairs, in gratitude for Chavez's oil subsidies.Footnote 6 On April 27, 2017, the Maduro government preempted Almagro's attempt to suspend Venezuela from the OAS by denouncing the OAS Charter, beginning a process that takes two years.Footnote 7
OAS Invocation of the TIAR and Adoption of the Resolution
Maduro advanced Venezuelan presidential elections, which were held on May 20, 2018, but the opposition leaders were jailed, in exile, or forbidden to run. Consequently, his reelection was not recognized by a significant segment of the international community. Maduro was sworn in on January 10, 2019, and on January 23, 2019, Juan Guaido, the President of the NA, was declared the “interim president” by his supporters and immediately recognized by the Trump administration. The new government promptly re-ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, the OAS Charter, and the TIAR.
The OAS, having exhausted the possibilities of the IADC, invoked the TIAR, which has only two Caribbean states parties.Footnote 8 The treaty is a mutual defense treaty that obliges states parties to take collective action against the aggressor state if one of them suffers an armed attack. The obligation to use force is legally binding and some consider the invocation of the TIAR the prelude to military action to remove the Maduro regime. Article 6 of the TIAR was the legal basis for the resolution, which claimed that the “crisis” and the “deterioration” of the situation “represented a threat” to the peace and security of the Americas.Footnote 9 The resolution calls on states parties to “identify” persons and entities of the Maduro regime involved in corruption, human rights violations, and crimes (money laundering, drug trafficking, terrorism, and organized crime) in order to hold them accountable and to freeze their assets.Footnote 10 It was adopted by sixteen of the nineteen states parties to the TIAR.Footnote 11 Uruguay was the only state that voted against it, on September 24, 2019 notifying the OAS that it was also pulling out of the TIAR, because it felt that the treaty was not designed to present a collective defense to internal political conflicts or internal threats to the national security of a particular state in the Americas.
The countries that opposed the September 23 resolution consider this a misinterpretation of the purpose of the TIAR, since no armed attack has occurred, and they cite the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of a member state as the dominant principle in the OAS.
The TIAR is the OAS's mutual defense pact that obliges states parties to take collective action against the aggressor state if one of them suffers an armed attack. The obligation to use force is legally binding and some consider the invocation of the TIAR as the prelude to military action to remove the Maduro regime.
MEETING OF CONSULTATION OF MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
THIRTIETH MEETING OF CONSULTATION OEA/Ser.F/II.30
OF MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS RC.30/RES. 1/19
September 23, 2019 23 September 2019
New York, New York Original: Spanish
United States
RC.30/RES. 1/19
RESOLUTION TO THE THIRTIETH MEETING OF CONSULTATION OF MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, ACTING AS THE CONSULTATIVE ORGAN IN APPLICATION OF THE INTER-AMERICAN TREATY OF RECIPROCAL ASSISTANCE (TIAR), FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND/OR HEADS OF DELEGATION AT THE MEETING TO BE HELD ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2019 IN NEW YORK CITY
(Approved at the plenary meeting held on September 23, 2019)
THE THIRTIETH MEETING OF CONSULTATION OF MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ACTING AS THE ORGAN OF CONSULTATION IN APPLICATION OF THE INTER-AMERICAN TREATY OF RECIPROCAL ASSISTANCE (TIAR),
CONSIDERING the provisions of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance and Resolution CP/RES. 1137 (2245/19);
RECALLING the provisions of Resolutions AG/RES 2929 of June 5, 2018, CP/RES 1117 of January 10, 2019, CP/RES 1123 of March 27, 2019, CP/RES. 1124 of April 9, 2019, CP/RES. 1127 of May 13, 2019, AG/RES 2944 of June 28, 2019, and CP/RES. 1133 of August 28, 2019;
BEARING IN MIND the participation of authorities and entities linked to the regime of Nicolas Maduro in illegal activities, in particular drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and its financing, corruption, and human rights violations;
STRESSING, with great concern, that the Venezuelan territory has, with the complacency of the illegitimate regime, become a refuge of terrorist organizations and illegal armed groups, such as the National Liberation Army, Residual Organized Armed Groups, and others, which threaten the security of the continent, in violation of the obligations established in Resolution 1373 of 2001 of the United Nations Security Council;
NOTING WITH CONCERN the July 2019 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which listed serious, systematic violations of human rights, including arbitrary detention, torture, gender-based violence, excessive use of force during demonstrations, and extrajudicial killings;
TAKING INTO ACCOUNT that all of these criminal activities, associated with the humanitarian crisis generated by the deterioration of the political, economic and social situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, represent a threat to the maintenance of the peace and security of the continent, under the terms of Article 6 of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance;
RENEWING the principles of Inter-American cooperation and solidarity as the foundation of the Inter-American System, especially taking into consideration the suffering of the Venezuelan people; and
TAKING NOTE of the provisions of Articles 8 and 20 of the TIAR;
RESOLVE:
1. To identify or designate persons and entities associated with the Nicolás Maduro regime involved in illegal activities of money laundering, illegal drug trafficking, terrorism and its financing, and linked to transnational organized crime networks, in order to use all available means to investigate, prosecute, capture, extradite and punish the responsible parties and to freeze their assets located in the territories of the TIAR States Parties, in accordance with national legal systems.
2. To identify and designate persons who serve or have served as senior officials of the Nicolas Maduro regime and who have participated in acts of corruption or serious human rights violations, in order to use all available means to investigate, prosecute, capture, extradite and punish the responsible parties and to provide for the freezing of their assets located in the territories of the States Parties to the TIAR, in accordance with national legal systems.
3. To instruct the financial intelligence units of the States Parties to the TIAR, in accordance with their fields of competence and using existing mechanisms, to prepare a consolidated list of persons linked to the Nicolas Maduro regime, as identified or designated in accordance with paragraphs 1 and 2 of this resolution.
4. To create an operational network, composed of financial intelligence and public security authorities and other competent authorities of the States Parties to the TIAR, for the purpose of stepping up legal, judicial and police cooperation to investigate events of money laundering, illegal drug trafficking, terrorism and its financing, and transnational organized crime practiced by individuals and entities linked to the illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro.
5. To instruct the Permanent Representatives to the Organization of American States of the States Parties to the TIAR to monitor the situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its impact on the region in order to evaluate possible recommendations, within the framework of Article 8 of the TIAR, for which purpose they may set up one or more ad hoc committees. These recommendations will be presented to the Organ of Consultation of the Foreign Ministers at their next session.
6. To keep open the Thirtieth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, acting as the Organ of Consultation of the TIAR, and to hold a new session within two months.
7. To request the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States to transmit the content of this Resolution to the United Nations Security Council.
