Disclaimer: Asymmetrical Haircuts is produced as a podcast, meaning it is meant to be listened to and not read. Because of this, we recommend that you listen to the episode while reading, because the written word does not do justice to the emotion or tone used by our speakers. However, because we recognise there might be bandwidth issues or you might be using a hearing aid, we have provided written transcripts for all our available episodes.

[INTRO TUNE]

Janet:  0:39  Hi Steph, Hi Janet. So 2026 here we are, but it started just slightly less gently than I’d expected.

Stephanie: 0:47  Yeah, we’re recording on Monday, January 5, which is usually a get back to work kind of day. But this time US action brought us out of the Christmas stupor quite early. Their forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and took him to the US to face drug charges.

Janet: 1:04  So we went to every tiny bit of nuance and news. If you haven’t actually caught up with what’s been happening, please do read a newspaper? Sorry, those don’t really exist anymore. Do they read a website? By the time this goes out, I think the Security Council at the United Nations will already have met, and there’ll be a load of passing of that, that I will see as to who said what. But of course, it will just be a matter of a bit of ritual. Some members will condemn what’s happened, and the United States is a permanent member, and that holds veto power. So in reality, I suppose nothing will change. Sorry, it makes me sound like a very cynical journalist, doesn’t it? Steph, but just yeah, here I am, cynical journalist number one, over to cynical journalist number two.

Stephanie:  1:49  Cynical journalist number two will say that when this airs, Maduro himself has probably appeared in US court following that iconic sunglasses and headphones picture on a US helicopter or Air Force, something which, you know, lost a lot of comments on Twitter that that is not possibly not in line with the Geneva Conventions, taking pictures of your POWs, if we can call him an actual W but that is also something that we probably are going to get into. But what’s important here to note is that he faces US allegations of drug smuggling, first laid in 2021, rather than the usual thing that we look at here: crimes, war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

According to the Reuters blurb which I read in preparation for this, he is charged with narco-terrorism, which apparently is a charge you think that in the US, which is interesting, cocaine importation, conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and a conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. And if that goes through, if he gets convicted on these charges, he faces decades to life in prison on each of those counts if convicted, my colleagues say in the US, so I’m sure they checked all of that up.

Janet: 3:04  Yeah, I’m pleased to hear that you can be convicted for possessing a machine gun in the United States, I didn’t know that was the case. Every international lawyer worth their salt has made it clear that what has happened in Venezuela to its former, I suppose, now leader and to the country is actually illegal under international law. But we’ve invited Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group to join us. Hi Brian, welcome to the podcast. 

Brian Finucane: Good to join you.

Janet: And he’s here to help us understand some of this bigger legal context and some of the implications.

Stephanie:  3:39  And we have Ignacio Jovtis of Interjust. Hi Ignacio. And with him, we’ll also explore some of the accountability avenues in Venezuela, some that are open, some that are closed, some that might be opened again. So it’s a lot to cover, but we’re going to start with Brian. Janet. You want to jump in?

Janet:  4:01  Yeah, sure. And also with Ignacio, I think we should also look at what the kind of reaction amongst Venezuelans has been, because I feel there’s this dichotomy of how some people are reacting one way some people are acting the other. So just put that on the shelf to come back to. So Brian, I said that everybody has said this is illegal under the United Nations Charter. Do you want to run through the quick and dirty why this is illegal? As far as I’m concerned, there’s no imminent threat, and that’s the basis, isn’t it?

Legality under UN Charter 

Brian Finucane:  4:35  Right? So, as your audience no doubt knows, the UN Charter, Article 2(4) prohibits the threat or use of force, subject to some narrow exceptions: the authorizations of the Security Council, self-defense or consent of the territorial state. None of those are relevant here. The Trump administration has not really articulated any argument as to how you square this action with the UN Charter, and in fact, there has been public reporting that the administration is relying on a 1989 Department of Justice opinion that says the president can override the UN Charter and use force and contravention of international law. 

The administration is throwing a lot of things at the wall with respect to justifying this operation publicly, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, saying that this is a law enforcement operation and not armed conflict or use of force. Yesterday, we did have some statements from the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz that invoked Article 51 and cited alleged drug trafficking, they noted that the US regarded Maduro to be the illegitimate leader of Venezuela, they cited the supposed team Venezuela and, you know, Hezbollah, China, Russia and Iran. This is throwing a lot of stuff at the wall, but the bottom line is, there’s no plausible self defense argument for this intervention. No possible way to square this with Article 2(4) or the Article 2(1) of the UN Charter, and it appears to be flagrantly illegal.

Janet:  6:10  Well, despite it being illegal, I mean, this isn’t the first time. This is what the US does. I’m looking back at Noriega, Panama, and I’m thinking about other examples in my journalistic lifetime, where the US has done stuff like this. So, you know, it doesn’t really feel like this is exceptional, or would you say it’s exceptional?

Brian Finucane:  6:34  I think it is exceptional. And I think the Noriega precedent, if you will, which I don’t regard, to be much more precedent, but that is one that the administration has quite consciously relied upon, and that 1989 Department of Justice opinion that I mentioned a moment ago was drafted in preparation for that operation. But I think there are some salient differences between the 1989 intervention in Panama and this operation in Venezuela. The Bush administration at the time, cited the invitation slash consent of authorities they regard to be legitimate in Panama for that operation. And also advanced somewhat more plausible, though not very plausible, sort of self defense arguments about prior attacks on US personnel in Panama, of course, US had troops in the country, in the in the canal zone at the time, and the Panamanian assembly had declared war on the US shortly before the intervention. I don’t regard Panama to be a good legal precedent, either in terms of use of force under Article 2(4) and 51 nor for US war powers purposes. But it is worth noting that there are differences between what happened then and what happened now. I do think it’s also relevant, though, for how a subsequent prosecution will play out in US courts. I think the prosecution of Noriega for drug trafficking charges does provide sort of a template for how things might look in the prosecution of Maduro and his wife. 

Oil

Stephanie:  7:55  When we look at now the press conference that Trump gave, he’s kind of said the quiet part out very loud, that this is going to be about oil, and that decades ago oil companies had assets were appropriated, and now they’re going to get them back, and the US is going to, quote, run the country. How does that work in international law? Because that is not like something I’ve seen before.

Brian Finucane:  8:19  The short answer is it doesn’t work at all in international law. But this is a part of a long running theme with President Trump, before he was President and during his first term as well. At one point, he was convinced to keep us troops in Syria, to quote, keep the oil. And it seems to be a very conscious and cynical play by those pushing for military intervention in Venezuela. First former Secretary of State to promote Venezuela’s oil resources, promote this narrative about Venezuela having taken US oil or oil interests, to persuade President Trump to launch this military intervention. And so it’s one of a series of justifications that have been used to sell intervention to Trump more so than the American public. Those also include the supposed terrorism characterization, the old narcotics trafficking. This is marketing used by those within the administration to persuade Trump to launch this intervention.

The Maduro Regime 

Stephanie:  9:17  Ignacio, when we turn to you, a lot of the reaction that we saw also was kind of double in the sense that there are a lot of people who say, well, this is illegal, but there’s also a lot of people –  I think a lot of European leaders had a kind of two phase, like, we need to know all the facts, of that kind of wait and see attitude. But there was also a lot of comment on Maduro as a person and his regime. What kind of regime is Maduro running? And why is there this kind of duality in reactions? On the one hand, it’s legal. On the other hand, you know, they’re using it to take out, as Trump might say, a bad guy. 

Ignacio Jovtis:  9:55  Yeah, what Venezuela has been for many years, decades now, one of the most corrupt countries in the world, Transparency International have been denouncing this for many years, and there are a lot of announcements, you know, that shows a link between corruption network and the government, including Maduro but also others that are now in power in Venezuela. Oil trafficking, goal extraction, even the UN fact finding mission issued a report a couple of years ago that explained, you know, the situation there in terms of corruption, killings. I think in the rank of Transparency International, Venezuela is in the top 10 of the most corrupt countries. So I think that the link is very clear. And indeed, I think that the reaction from many other states, European countries, was not very clear and did not denounce many cases about what was happening in the last years.

In terms of the big part of why this government was in place for so many years was because of the links to corruption, politicians that, as I said, are now in power. So, I think that the, yeah, the corruption element is something nobody discussed. Now, I think there’s not even a discussion that the corruption element was very strong in Venezuela.

Public Reaction and the Current Situation Inside Venezuela 

Janet:  11:16  But in terms of the reaction inside Venezuela just chatting before the podcast, you were saying that quite a lot of Venezuelans were very happy to see him gone. But is there a sense now of things potentially changing? I mean, maybe you could say how many political prisoners there still are. I mean, has anyone been released, for example?

Ignacio Jovtis:  11:41  Yeah, the situation remains like before Friday. Around thousands of political prisoners, some of them are still disappearing, nobody knows where they are. And so far, you know, this is very dynamic, you know, maybe for someone who listens to this podcast a week later the situation might change. But today, there is no signal that this will change, because, I mean, at the end of the day, the regime is still in place. What changed was the leadership right? So the situation is still a huge concern, and there are a lot of Venezuelan organizations demanding the release of political prisoners, but so far, there are no signals. 

And as you said, you know, many people are happy for this. For us working on international crime issues and so on, we are happy to see Maduro in hunger, right? But, you know, the concept, what we’re discussing now is a different story. You know what happened as Brian explained was illegal. But the reality for many Venezuelans that are living in Venezuela that have no access to health, people disappear, torture, so many killings and so on. They welcomed, many of them welcomed, you know, this first action, then, let’s see what happens in the future. No, but I think there was a lot of reaction that actually welcomed what was going on, even though it’s illegal. Now we all agree on that. So that was the perception that I had in, you know, talking to Venezuelans and with many colleagues the last days.

Stephanie:  13:16  As you said, the situation is really dynamic. But just to put it for our listeners, the situation that is now, as we understand it on Monday, is that Maduro is no longer in the country. The Vice President is taking over, but that is, as you said, Ignacio, that’s part of his party, so it is kind of still the regime in place. And I think Trump, in his press conference was asked if there was any role for those seen as legitimately elected, including the Nobel Prize winner Machado and the kind of, I guess, interim president of Venezuela who was elected, probably in those rigged elections. And he seemed to kind of brush that off and say that we’re talking to the Vice President and kind of leaving the leadership in place. Is that your understanding as well of the situation as it is now? 

Ignacio Jovtis: 14:03  Yeah, I mean, I find this amazing, the fact that, I don’t know, I initially thought that they were going to put a new governing plate, like it happened in Iraq, or something like that. But at the end, what is happening is that today, what is running the country –  The vice president – which, by the way, was sanctioned by the states. And, yeah, the opposition is still outside the country. As I said before, I think that what is happening now is a change of leadership, but not a change of the regime. I think that today, there are no signals that nothing can happen, can change in the near future, even though Corina Machado and Edmundo won in July. They’re outside the country. They don’t have the institutional capacity to run anything so far, and it doesn’t seem that it will change, as I said, in the near future. So let’s see what happens. But today, they’re the same people in the country, normally vice president, many other prominent leaders of the regime are still there and running the country. 

Head of State Immunity

Janet:  15:06  Brian, as I mentioned, sort of up at the top in the introduction, part of the focus now is going to be in the US. And I think it’s in New York that Maduro is meant to appear on these drug trafficking –  what was it you called Steph? narco trafficking charges?

Stephanie: Narco-terrorism. 

Janet: Sorry, these narco-terrorism charges. I don’t know what that is. I feel really embarrassed even asking this, but he’s a head of state. Officially, he has immunity. Do you just want to walk us through again the shit show that is immunity? Head of State, Maduro, New York, something to do with terrorism.

Brian Finucane: 15:52  Right, so I think that the narco terrorism charge may be as much about rhetorical flourish as any sort of legal substance. And I think it’s worth emphasizing that all these are accusations, these will have to have a trial to determine whether the government actually has open evidence to establish the charge beyond a reasonable doubt. But before we get that, we have to confront the immunity issues that you just flagged there, as militias will be aware under national law, the so-called Troika, the Head of Government, Head of State and Foreign Minister of countries are entitled to immunity while they’re in office under international law. The wrinkle here in US courts is who determines whether an individual is a member of the Troika who determines whether an individual is, in fact, the head of government or the head of state or the foreign minister. And the US system, the executive branch, has given great deference in those determinations, and you’ve seen this administration repeatedly referring to Nicolás Maduro as an illegitimate leader. And so it’s entirely, I think it’s likely, that the Trump administration will assert that Maduro is not, and was not at the time of his capture, the you know, the lawful Head of State, Head of Government of Venezuela, and that there may be great deference given to that determination by the courts. This, in this respect, is somewhat different than the Manuel Noriega trial where Noriega did not occupy a similar position in the Panamanian government, but again, I think this is going to be an issue as likely to be litigated in the coming weeks and months.

Janet:  17:31  Thank you for the summary. It does feel having watched very closely the negotiations on the development of a special tribunal on aggression for Ukraine, and understanding that the US was very involved behind the scenes in those and that put a lot of pressure on retaining the issues of immunity. I mean hypocrisy a bit, or just different strokes for different folks? 

Brian Finucane:  17:57  More than a bit. Yes, they want to have this administration and would like to have it both ways, no doubt. And there’s also the additional irony of the US Supreme Court finding that the US president has broad immunity within US courts. But of course, that image is not applied to other heads of state necessarily. So I think there, you know, this is gonna be a wonderful variety of issues to be litigated. 

I think another parallel to the Noriega case, as mentioned earlier, is the issue of prisoner of war protections. In the application of the III Geneva Convention, Maduro was also the Commander in Chief of the Venezuelan armed forces, and therefore the III Geneva Convention applies to him, and he should enjoy the protections afforded to POWs.

The Geneva Conventions: War or No War? 

Stephanie: 18:40  This evokes, for me, another question, namely, do you not have to have a war to have a prisoner of war? And is this story that this is a war on drugs? You know, we had a whole episode about it with some very adamant quotes from our colleagues or from other experts, saying that just calling it a war doesn’t make it a war, and so laws of war should not apply. Does it work differently if you kidnap the leader of the armed forces, even if you say there is not an armed conflict?

Brian Finucane:  19:13  So we’ve transitioned from a make believe war, the war on drugs, the boat bombing scheme in the Caribbean the Pacific, to an actual war in international armed conflict. I don’t think there’s any serious debate amongst legal scholars that the US military incursion into Venezuela, the assault on Venezuela’s arms forces, the capture of its commander in chief, constitutes an international armed conflict, which triggers the application of the Geneva Conventions, including the III Convention respective to prisoners of war, but also the IV Convention with respect to civilians, and those have sort of broad implications. Given this administration’s disregard for law, general and international law in particular, remains to be seen whether they’ll actually abide by those Geneva Convention obligations.

Venezuela and the International Criminal Court

Janet:  20:01  So we are sort of thinking about accountability issues here, and that’s our bread and butter. And I wanted to give Steph – wanted to push Steph – let’s put it like that, into a bit of Stephapedia, because, as we know, the International Criminal Court has a role here in terms of Venezuela. So take it away Steph.

Stephanie  20:21  I’ve actually already prepared this background since late last year, anticipating that something would happen, and somebody at Reuters would ask me, what the heck was going on with Venezuela and the ICC?

So Venezuela has been an ICC member since the court became a legal reality in July, 2002 and the ICC has jurisdiction, as we know, over genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by anyone on the territory of Venezuela or by Venezuelan nationals anywhere. So you know, US Nationals committing any of those crimes allegedly in the territory of Venezuela would fall under the jurisdiction of the court – the court would say. In 2018 we already had a joint referral by South American states to look into possible crimes against humanity stemming from human rights abuses by officials in the Maduro government. And in 2021 the office of the prosecutor opened a full fledged investigation. Now, in 2020, Venezuela has already asked the court to investigate US officials, arguing that the impact of US sanctions amounted to crimes against humanity, and they opened a preliminary investigation in that case, but there is no full fledged investigation, so there is, there is a lot of back and forth with opposition and human rights groups in Venezuela, wanting to bring the Maduro government in front of the ICC, and the Maduro government trying to bring some US officials to the ICC. Another probe that has advanced the furthest is the probe into alleged human rights abuses by the regime of Maduro. But nothing has actually come from that yet that we know

Janet:  22:03  Now, what I remember most clearly was one of Karim Khan’s, the current ICC prosecutor who’s sort of temporarily stepped away from his leading role for another reason. But when he came in, he did this trip to Venezuela, and there was a photo op, and then the court opens a bureau, an office in Caracas.

Stephanie:  22:30  Yeah, and they signed a memorandum of understanding, and they were going to cooperate with the Maduro government. I think they have since withdrawn. And also it’s good to know that even though Karim Khan has stepped aside for other reasons that we discussed in this podcast, ad nauseam I would almost say, he has also actually now been taken off the whole Venezuela case because of possibilities of conflict of interest, because his sister in law was advising the Maduro government in the Venezuela case.

Janet:  22:59  And I remember during the ASP, they announced this closing down their office in Caracas. And I was wondering whether they’re closing down other places, but they said, no, I remember that was during the launch of the annual report of the Office of the Prosecutor. And you picked up also that there was a Reuters report that the Venezuelan parliament was saying, we could get ourselves prepared to withdraw. But have you heard anything more stuff about Venezuela withdrawing from the ICC?

Stephanie:  23:26  No, I haven’t heard anything else. I think my Caracas colleagues have probably been busy with other stuff, as you can imagine, as probably has the Venezuelan parliament. But just reminder to our listeners, who probably already know, that even if they would withdraw today, it would still take a year to take effect, so anything that happens in this time period that we’re talking about would still fall under the ICC jurisdiction.

Janet:  23:51  And, yeah, I’m starting to see people saying, hey, you know, if that’s probe that you were talking about, Steph, into crimes against humanity, has gone anywhere, could there potentially be some arrest warrants out, including against Maduro himself? asking for a friend, do you know anything Steph? 

Stephanie:  24:09  No, I mean, we’ve tried to ask the ICC deputy prosecutors about this, especially, we had an interview with them in December where we asked them about sanctions, and of course, we also asked about Venezuela, and they wouldn’t say anything about it. I don’t think they even necessarily wanted to acknowledge there is an ongoing ICC investigation. So they’re treading very carefully. I mean, I’m sure they acknowledge it, but they didn’t seem willing to say anything more than yes, you know, we haven’t closed it. So I think at that time, I think also everybody was trying to kind of get out of the gaze of the US and not attract more possible sanctions on the court. So that might also be a way not to play up your potential involvement in Venezuela. But I think that ship has probably sailed by now.

Janet:  25:00  And in your intro, you very carefully said genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and you didn’t mention the fourth crime that the ICC has jurisdiction over, which is aggression, because they don’t have jurisdiction over aggression in relation to Venezuela.

Stephanie: 25:17  Well, Venezuela didn’t sign the Kampala amendment, and even if they did, the Kampala amendment specifically says that you cannot prosecute the crime of aggression by non member states or nationals of non member states. So even if Venezuela signed up, the aggression can only be prosecuted by the ICC if both countries where this happens are members and have signed up that they can prosecute aggression. So you know, looking at the countries that have signed up, probably, you know, if Liechtenstein invades Germany, then we might see an aggression case at the ICC at this point. But I don’t know how many other states this would be possible. All the states where this is potentially problematic and who might feel the need to invade another nation at some point have not actually signed up to the Kampala amendment, very broadly, painting a very broad brush stroke here, but that’s my interpretation of it.

Janet:  26:08  Well, we’ve had some very patient guests listening in to us delving into the ICC, so let’s bring them back in. Start with you, Ignacio, I assume that you’ve been sending some information to the ICC. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, or is that really not an avenue that you have considered as a possibility for Venezuela.

Ignacio Jovtis:  26:29  No, actually, indeed, some years ago, while we were working at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, we submitted some reports denouncing crimes committed by the Venezuelan intelligence service. But this was a long time ago, and the reality is that today we do not have either victims identified or perpetrators identified in the eventual investigation. You know, still it’s going quite slow. It is very important also to push for other accountability mechanisms, not only to focus on the ICC, what we are also doing, you know, is working on the universal jurisdiction case in Argentina.

Universal Jurisdiction Case in Argentina 

Stephanie:  27:09  Yeah, because when we spoke to you a few years ago, and we’ll link to that podcast in the show notes, you were talking about bringing a case in Argentina. Is that still an option, and who would be accused there? For what? if you have that kind of detail already?

Ignacio Jovtis:  27:25  Yes, a lot of things happened in this case, but for many reasons, strategic reasons, security reasons, that we keep a very low profile on what is going on there. But there are some things that, of course, I can share with you. 

So in Argentina today, there are detention orders in place, that requested for 16 accused officials: One is Maduro, the case that we are running, and I am the lawyer in this case, representing three victims. There are 14 officials of the National Guard indicted for crimes against humanity, and there are detention orders against that. So the question that we have now is the detention orders, are there, many things happened in the buff? For example, the victims went to Argentina and testified before the court, the Argentine court. This was quite unique, it was a historic moment, you know, with the very first time that you have Venezuelan victims testifying for these great human rights violations before a court, an impartial court. So what’s a very important moment, and many things happened since then. One of them, as I said, is the issue of the arrest orders. 

The question is, what will happen now? What is the situation? Because we knew that there was not going to be any kind of cooperation between Venezuela and the Argentinian justice, right? What will happen now? Is there something that is going to change? Are we going to be any kind of cooperation that there is? There is something important to mention that according to the Venezuelan constitution, no Venezuelan nationals can be extradited to other countries. But as I said, we’re in a very dynamic moment, and what will happen, we don’t know, but we are, of course, working on pushing and insisting to implement these orders that are already in place and were issued from some time ago, many months ago.

The Future for Other Latin American Countries?

Janet:  29:27  Well, I think we’re going to keep a close eye on that, Ignacio. Please let us know if, if things do open up, let’s say, as a result of the changes that are going on. Let’s bring you back in also Brian, in terms of the kind of the dynamic situation that we seem to have, particularly regionally. Donald Trump was saying at the time we’re recording –  yesterday – when he was traveling to some reporters, that other countries also still need to be aware that he could make the same kind of decision that he made on Venezuela in relation to those countries. So he said that Colombia should be worried, that Mexico needs to be worried. He’s calling it, I think, the ‘Donroe’. And I’ve also seen that described as the ‘dumb bro doctrine’, the you know this, this way that it’s their hemisphere and they do what they want the United States in that area. How seriously do you think we should be taking this as the start of some kind of a domino?

Brian Finucane:  30:30  Well, I don’t think you should take the notion of an actual doctrine seriously, but I do think people should take more seriously, be more concerned about the prospect or additional US military interventions in Latin America or in the hemisphere generally, following the success, or at least perceived success, by the president of this military operation in Venezuela. This president likes spectacle, and this was a spectacular and performative military intervention, maybe hoping to replicate that elsewhere. 

Now, some reason that for reassurance, perhaps, may be that the intervention in Venezuela represented a convergence of interests on the part of many in the administration, and the culmination of a months long effort by the Secretary of State to persuade the US President to mount this intervention, to topple and remove Nicolás Maduro. The dynamics may be very different within the administration with respect to other countries. Okay, so, for example, the US has a close bilateral cooperation arrangement with Mexico. The Mexican President right now is giving a press conference, and so US interests could be harmed in ways through military intervention in Mexico that would not be true for Venezuela for example. The same is true of Colombia, right, if the US is serious about countering narcotics, well, Colombia is a close partner in Counter Narcotics operations. Military intervention there will be harmful to those interests. So there may be actors within the Trump administration who realized that, you know, trying to replicate, you know, Operation Absolute Resolve in other countries in the region would be contrary to the interest of those actors themselves, contrary to the interests of specific US officials.

Stephanie:  32:23  Ignacio, I know that you thought that the countries that Trump named were not the ones to watch most closely. What would happen next? What would be your pick for the next US intervention in Latin America or potential trouble spot in that sense?

Ignacio Jovtis:  32:39  Well, yeah, I think one of the candidates were, you know, named was in Nicaragua, or the situation there, so.

Janet:  32:47  And Cuba, what about, Ignacio? What about Cuba as well? 

Ignacio Jovtis:  32:54  And Cuba as well, Cuba as well. So I, I mean, the very first thing that I thought when this happened is, what will happen next with Cuba and Nicaragua, and then what about Colombia? And then what, you know, all these, these interventions can start to expand in Latin America with, you know, the history says that every time that this happened in the past, was a disaster for all the countries. Think of Guatemala, so many countries, but yeah, I think that this creates a new situation, a very worrying situation for the whole region. Because, yeah, as Brian said, you know, the show that gave Venezuela, you know, can be replicated in other, in other countries. And the very first thing, I think, are obviously Venezuela, Cuba, who knows? But I think it’s very, in any case, it’s very, very worrying.

Stephanie:  33:41 We’ve just scratched the surface of what is the US are doing in Venezuela and might do in the rest of Latin America, but we are kind of at the end of the podcast, and so we will ask our kind of catch all question, which is, is there anything that we should have asked you, Brian, that we didn’t, anything that you want to say that you think we should lift out a little more and didn’t get the chance to do so? 

Brian Finucane:  34:07  Yeah I mean, I think the two categories of major risk flowing from this intervention are one, emboldening the US president to take further military actions in the region and globally, but to further undermining the prohibition on the use of force globally. The US, for better or worse, has been a pillar of the international legal order since World War Two. It helps establish the UN Charter, it helped establish the prohibition on the use of force, and for the US government to be flagrantly flouting that prohibition in this manner, I think, is very destabilizing and destructive, and it’s likely to embolden other countries as well.

Stephanie:  34:41  Ignacio, this is your chance to put your two cents in on what you think we should have shed more light on. 

Ignacio Jovtis: 34:47  Oh, just to remind again, that, you know, still there are thousands of political prisoners in Venezuela. People still don’t know where they are. Many people disappear. I mean, this didn’t change, so this has to, you know, whatever happens, it has to change immediately. And the other things that I think that in the center of whatever analysis that we do has to be the right of access to justice, truth and reparation for the victims, that still remains at its walls now. So if any change has to happen, this has to be in the center of any decision, you know, the liberation of the political prisoners, and to investigate what happened in the last 20 years in Venezuela.

Recommendations

Janet:  35:25 And we always try to finish the podcast with our What are you watching, or listening to, or reading, either within this field, something that I see a whole load of people digging out books on Latin America that they’re recommending to people, or maybe something you’re using to get away from this and to escape for a short time. Ignacio, what would you like to suggest?

Ignacio Jovtis:  35:53 Well, this Friday, there is not much more things than what is going on. But, you know, music, music, I’m very mentally saying a lot of you know, I am Argentinian, but I live in Spain. Now I’m in Argentina. I was visiting family. I was listening a lot of Argentina folklore, Argentinian folk, Chamamé, very like traditional music from Argentina and this is what I’m trying to, you know, to do at night, to, you know, to escape a bit, to listen some Argentinian folk music.

Janet:  36:30  And Brian, what about you? I don’t think you’ve had any time to do anything different as well, but maybe something from before, from Christmas time that you were spending your time on. 

Brian Finucane:  36:42  Well, in terms of things I’ve been reading recently, a lot of the great output from my friends and colleagues at Just Security who have been doing a tremendous job excavating and dissecting the legal issues raised both by the intervention in Venezuela and, more generally, the preceding boat bombing campaign.

Janet:  36:59  Yeah, I definitely have Just Security open and enjoyed the swiftness of their analyzes on things, but they have a bigger team than Steph and me, which is just about 10% of Steph and about 50% of me. So you only get the very occasional insights from us. So thank you for providing it more long term as part of the team, Brian.

Stephanie:  37:21  I’ve been reading the new book on Pinochet by Philippe Sands, which is also very odd to be reading that at the same time, and all the implications about immunity and trying heads of state in different countries and lots of historical parallels so um, but we’re discussing that later in a podcast and probably also in the book club, so we will tell you much more about that. But I thought that was a, it was a fortuitous time to be reading that when this, all this news came in.

Janet:  37:48  Great, so thank you both so much for giving us your time, and I’m sure you’ve got to get back to your day jobs now.

Everyone  37:55  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[OUTRO MUSIC] 

This was asymmetrical haircuts, your international justice podcast, created and presented by Janet Anderson and Stephanie van den Berg. This episode was created in partnership with Justiceinfo.net,  an independent site covering justice efforts for mass violence, and with the Hague Humanity Hub. You can find show notes and everything about the podcast on asymmetricalhaircuts.com. This show is available on every major podcast service, so please subscribe. Give us a rating and spread the word.

Stephanie  38:46  Interrupting our regular programming just to say, please come and support us on Patreon and get our newsletter for the price of just a cup of coffee. You can hear Janet and me talk even more about war crimes and books that we like to read and music that we like to read, and what we are doing. Come and follow us and support the show. Thank you.