US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.
US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.
How it is legal to seize a ship from another country when it isn’t even close to your coast? Are you so brainwashed you can call this normal?
Usually it wouldn’t be, but there are exceptions for piracy and slaving. There is also an exception for vessels without nationality. Skipper had been fraudulently flying the flag of Guyana, who confirmed no such ship exists on their register. The US could argue it was therefore stateless.
I’m not a lawyer but afaik the sanctioned ships are treated kinda like “legal piracy” as country can board it even in international waters if it knows it’s performing a sanctioned operation like transferring goods to a place it’s not allowed to or the ship is stateless or sneaky (no transponder etc).
At the end of the day these legalities are purely made up to satisfy treaties rather than ethics or rationality so it’s silly to try to look for rational meaning here.
The law holds that states cannot commit piracy. That is solely a crime for private entities.
Ships can only fall under the jurisdiction of the country of registration, the country in whose coastal waters the ship is in, or - in exceptional circumstances of piracy, slavery or statelessness of the ship - anyone.