JANUARY 5 — Only three months ago I wrote that territorial sovereignty is paramount in international law.

After Article 1 of the United Nations (UN) Charter sets out the purposes of the UN, Article 2 states explicitly that the UN and its members must act in accordance with the seven principles of the Charter.

The fourth principle prohibits the use of force against the “territorial integrity or political independence” of a member state.

I was writing days after Israel struck Hamas in Qatar on September 9, 2025, which killed five Hamas members and a member of the Qatari security forces.

I had this question: What can one say of Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar?

So, here’s a similar question: What can one say of the US’s strikes on Venezuela?

The answers are similar to Israel’s strikes in Qatar.

First, the strikes on Venezuela violate the sovereignty of a member state of the UN and Article 2 of the UN Charter.

Second, they violate Article 51 of the UN Charter. Any use of force requires either the authorisation of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), or a justification that force is being used strictly in self-defence.

According to Geoffrey Robertson KC, a founding head of Doughty Street Chambers and a former president of the UN war crimes court in Sierra Leone, there is no conceivable way the US can claim that the strikes were taken in self-defence.

“If you are going to use self-defence you have to have a real and honest belief that you are about to be attacked by force. No one has suggested that the Venezuelan army is about to attack the United States.” Robertson told The Guardian.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has rightly raised “deep concerns” about the US’s strikes, calling them “a dangerous precedent”.

The dangerous precedent is alluded to by Robertson in the following words: 

“The most obvious consequence is that China will take the opportunity to invade Taiwan. This is the most appropriate time for it to do so, bolstered by the precedent of Trump’s invasion of Venezuela.”

If the US can, so can China.

God forbid.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.