In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Alonso Gurmendi

19 Apr

The Amazon is a 7,000,000 km2 ecosystem, containing the world’s largest rainforest, boasting some 390 billion trees, 2.5 million species of insects and over 2,000 species of birds and mammals, spanning the territories of eight states (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela). It is also the name of a company worth 810 billion dollars. Back in 2012, Amazon – the company – applied to register...

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01 Mar

I wanted to call readers attention to a particularly interesting ongoing case regarding recognition of governments in the context of Venezuela. The case (Rusoro Mining Ltd. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) revolves around damages caused to Rusoro, a Canadian company, by Venezuela’s nationalisation of the gold mining sector. In 2016, an ICSID tribunal ordered Venezuela to pay approximately one billion...

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27 Feb

Perhaps it is too early to be talking about a Venezuelan transition, but then again, it is never too early to be prepared. Presuming the Lima Group does avoid American military action in Venezuela and secures a workable plan for elections, how would a post-Maduro transitional justice scheme look like? Accountability seems to be of great importance to the Lima Group....

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25 Feb

The last time Venezuela faced the plight of war, almost 120 years ago, German and British gunboats deployed outside its ports, blockading them. After turbulent times, Venezuela had run out of money and was unable to pay its debts. In a classic display of pre-UN-Charter jus ad bellum, both the German Empire and the United Kingdom felt fully within their...

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14 Jan

As I noted in a recent post, on January 4th, the Lima Group decided not to recognize “the legitimacy of the new presidential term of Nicolas Maduro” as President of Venezuela. On January 11th, Venezuela’s National Assembly declared itself the “sole Legitimate Power of Venezuela before the International Community” (all unofficial translations my own). Soon after, the Assembly’s Chairman, Juan...

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08 Jan

On January 4th, the Lima Group – an informal gathering of 14 states seeking multilateral solutions to the humanitarian, democratic, and economic crisis in Venezuela – issued its latest statement, on the upcoming inauguration of Nicolás Maduro as President of Venezuela (see here for Spanish version). The statement called for the non-recognition of the legitimacy of Maduro’s government and called...

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02 Jan

During colonial times, the Spanish empire lost around 1500 warships carrying priceless riches from the gold and silver mines of the Andes and the Sierra Madre. Under international law, these sunken warships are immune from state jurisdiction and generally remain state property even after sinking. In the past decade, international law has sought to regulate their preservation and salvaging, both...

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27 Nov

Cocaine is a big problem in Latin America. According to the UN, 99.5% of worldwide coca cultivation is concentrated in just three countries: Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Under pressure from the Global North, Latin American nations have reduced the problem to a plan to contain cocaine flows through mostly violent means, to disastrous humanitarian consequences. In several states, violence has...

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21 Nov

Between 1980 and 2000, Peru went through what Peruvians call “La Época del Terrorismo”, or “The Era of Terrorism”. In those years, the Shining Path, a Maoist-inspired terrorist group, launched an attack on Peruvian democracy seeking to establish a Khmer-Rouge-like dictatorship. According to Peru’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission, its Supreme Court, and The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the “Era...

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08 Nov

As evidenced in Part I, Latin American states have not been keen to allow expansive interpretations of the rules for use force in foreign soil. Latin America is a region historically subjected to foreign intervention, and as such, the rules it designed, especially in the pre-Charter era, were always very much thought out from a perspective of protecting “the invaded”,...

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