General Assembly Security Council

United Nations A/73/830–S/2019/300

General Assembly Distr.: General 9 April 2019 Security Council English Original: Spanish

General Assembly Security Council Seventy-third session Seventy-fourth year Agenda item 128 (f) Cooperation between the United Nations and regional and other organizations: cooperation between the United Nations and the Organization of American States

Identical letters dated 8 April 2019 from the Permanent Representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

I have the honour to draw your attention to a dangerous development expected tomorrow, 9 April 2019, at a special meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) being held to consider “the situation in Venezuela”. As is common knowledge, and according to reports in the media since last week, the Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the Organization of American States has been stating that a draft resolution is to be submitted for consideration by the Permanent Council within days. In flagrant violation of all international laws and the Charters of the Organization of American States and the United Nations, the draft resolution aims to accept the appointment of Venezuelan diplomatic representatives and agents other than those designated by President Nicolás Maduro Moros in full exercise of his constitutional powers. The draft (see annex) is to be considered tomorrow. I wish to stress that the prospective adoption of this draft resolution holds serious implications for international law, as it threatens to establish a negative and dangerous precedent for the legal certainty surrounding the rights and privileges attached to accreditation of member States of the Organization of American States and their national Governments, as legitimate representatives of those States, as a consequence of promoting within the Organization of American States a coup organized by a group of its members, in order to establish in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela a dictatorial government that ignores not only all the public authorities of the State, but also its constitution. It should be recalled that the International Court of Justice, in a judgment delivered in 1986, indicated “there have been in recent years a number of instances of foreign intervention in one State for the benefit of forces opposed to the

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government of that State. It concludes that the practice of States does not justify the view that any general right of intervention in support of an opposition within another State exists in contemporary international law (…)”1. This means that international law provides no right or authority whatsoever for intervention in the internal affairs of another State, and that the recognition of the political opposition within a State as the “legitimate representative” of the citizens of that State is a violation of the principle of non-intervention and constitutes an illegal act against that State. That is all the more true when the interference is accompanied by the imposition of unilateral coercive measures intended to break the will of the Government that is the target of the attack. Moreover, as a report produced by the research services of the German Bundestag in February 2019 indicates, recognition of a government and its representatives – an act which cannot in itself confer legitimacy – must not be premature, particularly if the government does not have genuine authority over the territory of the State that it is claiming to govern; it would represent “a repudiation of the legitimate state authority by the recognizing state, whereby the latter incurs tortious liability under international law”. As determined by the Charter of the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Democratic Charter, any decision to suspend the rights and privileges of a member State of the Organization must be taken by an affirmative vote of at least two thirds of the member States at a special session of the General Assembly at the level of ministers for foreign affairs. Accordingly, by virtue of those treaties, whi ch are legally binding on all their signatories, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States has absolutely no authority or power to adopt resolutions which would lead to the de facto suspension of a member State, and still less to appoint that State’s national authorities, as such an act is an inalienable right of the sovereign people of each nation. For those reasons, no decision of this magnitude has ever been adopted in the history of the Organization of American States. The adoption of the draft resolution, should that occur, would therefore not just establish a negative and dangerous precedent with implications in the future for any other State which did not yield to foreign coercion and extortion, it would also turn the Organization of American States into a platform for pressing the interests of a State’s internal political opposition with foreign Governments in the region which were determined to displace its national authorities against the sovereign will of its people. That would mark the destruction of the rule of law on an international scale. If the draft resolution were to be adopted, there would be practical implications for the legitimate Venezuelan delegation accredited to the Organization of American States and for Venezuela’s diplomatic mission to the Organization of American States, including implications for their diplomatic privileges and immunities, in the light of the hostile attitude, in practice, of the host country, which has been violating on its own territory the commitments made pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Just such an event occurred on 19 March 2019, when two buildings of the Office of the Military Attaché of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the United States of America were attacked and taken by storm, along with the Consulate-General of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in New York, with the protection and support of representatives of the Department of State of the United States of America. In the light of all of these considerations, we wish to appeal to you to avoid validating an action which from any standpoint would go against the substance and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and which represents a

______1 https://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/70/9973.pdf.

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distortion of the genuine will of the member States of the Organization of American States. I should be grateful if you would have the present letter and its annex circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda item 128(f), and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Samuel Moncada Ambassador Permanent Representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations

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Annex to the identical letters dated 8 April 2019 from the Permanent Representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

Draft resolution on the situation in Venezuela

THE PERMANENT COUNCIL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES, REAFFIRMING the right of the peoples of the Americas to democracy and the obligation of their Governments to promote and defend it as reflected in Article 1 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter; RECALLING that, through resolution AG/RES. 2929 (XLVIII-O/18) of June 5, 2018, the General Assembly declared that the May 20, 2018 electoral process in Venezuela lacked legitimacy for not having met the participation of all Venezuelan political actors, its failure to comply with international standards, and for being carried out without the necessary guarantees for a free, fair, transparent, and democratic process; TAKING NOTE that through resolution CP/RES. 1117 (2200/19) of January 10, 2019, the OAS underscored the constitutional authority of the democratically elected National Assembly and resolved not to recognize the legitimacy of Nicolás Maduro’s new term of office; BEARING IN MIND Article 80 of the Charter of the Organization of American States, as well as Article 3 of the Statutes of the Permanent Council; TAKING NOTE of the letter dated January 22, 2019, sent from the National Assembly of Venezuela to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States; and ACKNOWLEDGING that Nicolás Maduro’s presidential authority lacks legitimacy and that his appointees to public office consequentially lack the requisite legitimacy, RESOLVES: 1. To accept the appointment of Mr. Gustavo Tarre as Permanent Representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States. 2. To instruct the Secretary General to transmit the text of this resolution to the Secretary General of the United Nations.

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