Lovingly Remembered, Painfully Missed

Professor Paul and Professor Clyde in a Dialogue: International Law Has Massively Suffered Under the U.S. Raid in Venezuela

It truly feels like a funeral. I am relatively early and the room is already bursting. People are squeezing, more and more are rushing in at the last minute. Instead of engaging in a costly search for a vacant seat, many accept their fate and lean against the wall. Arms crossed and back pressed to the cool enclosure of the room, they start waiting impatiently in anticipation of the upcoming talk. 

In the front, Professor Paul Musgrave and Professor Clyde Wilcox have already made themselves comfortable and seem ready to talk. Instead of wearing suits of black tristesse, they went for their conventional “professor-attire.” Professor Wilcox even decided for a mood-elevating yellow tie. Maybe a little too optimistic? Evenly, Professor Musgrave does not really radiate the charisma of a mourner, smiling like a Cheshire cat. He tries to light up the dark shadows of queasyness that are crawling towards the back of the room.

Where the room gets darker, people are silent. Silently waiting. Silently thinking. Silently hoping. If tension is a noise, I am at a concert. Huge is the interest in mourning the unexpectedly quick decease of international law, after a U.S.-led capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro which has plunged the country into political and economic havoc.

What better question would introduce the hectic get-together of students and faculty than asking for the significance of international law in global affairs in the current absence of it? Well, Sabiha Betül Koç (SFS’26), moderator of the event, wants to know exactly what happens now after the U.S. raid in Venezuela and asks the questions that have been painfully dwelling on many students’ lips for days.

Professor Musgrave starts his eulogy by playing cool, claiming “the invasion in Venezuela is not surprising.” He explains that the raid had a hyper-personalized character, referring to the capture of Maduro as an individual. Going into more detail, he specifies that the extension of U.S. domestic law to a global level serves as a prime example of a violation of international law. In doing so, the U.S. has not only committed an act of aggression, defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and disrespected the principle of sovereignty on the side of Venezuela. Indeed, the U.S. has actively given itself the authority to detain a foreign leader. 

Both professors find common ground in calling out the important role Europe plays in the discourse of restoring international law. Just like a defibrillator, Europe might be the last hold in reviving the legitimacy of international law and releasing it from its cardiac arrest. Yet, while the heart rate remains unmoved, Professor Wilcox mentions other statistics that throw a dim light onto the electoral backing of the raid. He refers to a Reuters survey and highlights that only 33% of Americans approved the action of the raid, while only 42% approve of President Trump personally. 

Now, since the action generated concerns rather than contentment, the magnifying glass needs to be moved onto the reasons for the raid. Why now? Why that way?

Quickly a trigger has been pulled: The Epstein Files are mentioned and the room awakes from its trance. We become highly alert. Is the raid just another diversion from the pressure resting on Trump’s shoulders to finally release the Epstein Files? Or is it merely oil that attracts the greedy hands of the orange man? Will Venezuela become a modern-day colony, readily available to supply its exploiters with energy?

Professor Alexis Antoniades puts forward an alternative approach, surprisingly economic in nature. He believes that having an additional source of oil at one’s disposal makes the U.S. immune against the fluctuation of the global oil price. Now, why would the oil price spike in the short-run? The economist delivers the answer and asserts that an attack on Iran, as anticipated after Trump had proudly announced Iran to be on his wish list of horror, triggers an increase in oil prices. Having a price-independent source of oil then makes Venezuela a valuable asset in the bank of U.S. geopolitics.

One question remains however; 

Who is running Venezuela?

Mixed messages from U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio leave the public puzzled. While Trump claims that the U.S. temporarily intends to “run” Venezuela, Rubio rather talks about pushing for policy changes by continuing the oil quarantine.

The current interim president and former Venezuelan Vice President under Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez, has never been on any U.S. sanctions list as Professor Musgrave adds. He specifies that the U.S. sanction list of individuals is long, especially in the geographical context of Venezuela. 

So, what saves her from being cancelled? —Very simply, it gets down to business.

The U.S. needs a business partner and mediator when it comes to making oil deals and potential negotiations about other critical minerals. 

After Sabiha Betül asks her ultimate question if diplomacy was possible, we gasp and, in a canon, turn our focus from the moderator towards the two politics experts. Full of expectation, we wait to place our flowers onto the casket of international law.

Who would have thought that Professor Musgrave would clear his throat and confirm that “there is room for diplomacy.” In a subordinate clause he adds, “but diplomacy isn't always nice.” One could boil it down to negotiations and whoever has been negotiating on a traditional Souq probably knows the dirty tricks to shift thresholds and trade concessions.

Not very rosy prospects, but still no need to bury international law.

When Sabiha Betül eventually opens the floor to the audience, Hana Alisawi (SFS’27) throws in an important neologism: The Donroe Doctrine. Alluding to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, Trump seems to pursue a re-conquest of the Western hemisphere under U.S. influence. Unilateral ventures to reshape governments and to exploit geopolitical assets are accordingly on his agenda. When looking at his most recent list of prospective aggressions, inter alia, Greenland, Iran and Columbia, one can only hope that this is a joke. 

To amplify the threat against the last gleam of hope, Professor Musgrave ends the session by giving a warning, “A lot of the times the jokes we tell show what we really mean.”

With that, Professor Wilcox rushes to his next class, students and faculty get up and start chattering excitedly. 

If hope is under threat, it is up to us to come up with new ideas and perspectives. Hope means being creative. Hope lies in imagination. So, let us picture ourselves as doctors and let's figure out ways on how to cure international law.