Argentina v Venezuela? Notes on Diplomatic Tensions and International Dispute Settlement

On 8 December 2024, Venezuelan authorities detained Argentine navy police officer Nahuel Agustín Gallo after he entered the nation from Colombia. In line with Argentina’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs, Gallo first travelled by automotive to Chile, then by aircraft to Bogotá, and eventually by taxi to the Venezuelan border so as to reunite along with his Venezuelan companion and their two-year-old little one. On 27 December, the Venezuelan Public Ministry, led by Legal professional-Normal Tarek William Saab, introduced felony costs towards Gallo for alleged terrorist actions, accusing him of concealing a ‘felony plan’ below the guise of a household go to. Argentina’s Overseas Minister Gerardo Werthein dismissed these accusations, calling the detention arbitrary and insisting that Gallo’s sole objective was to spend time along with his household.

This incident has heightened diplomatic tensions between the 2 international locations. Since March 2024, Venezuela has closed its airspace to any plane coming from or going to Argentina in response to Argentina’s handover of a seized Venezuelan cargo aircraft to US authorities. In July, after the Venezuelan presidential election, diplomatic relations between Argentina and Venezuela in the end broke down. The Argentine authorities below Javier Milei was among the many first worldwide to recognise Edmundo González Urrutia as Venezuela’s president-elect, dismissing Nicolás Maduro’s victory as a ‘fraud’ and condemning him as a ‘dictator’. In response, Maduro’s authorities expelled Argentina’s diplomatic and consular personnel from Venezuela. The departure of Argentine officers left six Venezuelan asylum seekers stranded throughout the diplomatic premises, and the compound was positioned below Brazil’s custody. The embassy has since been surrounded by law enforcement officials and subjected to energy outages and meals shortages, sparking worry for the protection of the asylum seekers – notably in gentle of Ecuador’s intrusion into the Mexican Embassy in Quito in April 2024.

On 2 January 2025, the Argentine authorities introduced that it had filed a ‘grievance earlier than the Worldwide Felony Courtroom (ICC)’ based mostly on the ‘arbitrary detention and compelled disappearance’ of Nahuel Gallo. Hours later, Argentina introduced it had additionally requested provisional measures from the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights (IACHR).

This put up examines the Argentine authorities’s authorized responses to the detention of Nahuel Gallo and argues that they miss the prospect to comprehensively deal with the diplomatic tensions. It first contends that Argentina’s resort to the ICC is primarily symbolic and, whereas it may very well be argued that it could serve to convey consideration to human rights abuses in Venezuela, it’s in the end unlikely to assist defend Gallo. It then means that, whereas seemingly extra appropriate, Argentina’s request to the IACHR may even face severe hurdles to both defend Gallo or assist clear up the broader bilateral battle. General, the put up emphasises {that a} real response to the rising tensions requires a severe dedication to worldwide dispute decision.

The ‘Grievance’ earlier than the ICC: A Technique in Search of Goal?

Argentine media rapidly amplified the Ministry of Overseas Affairs’ announcement that the federal government had lodged a ‘grievance’ with the ICC. ‘Argentina takes Venezuela to [the] Worldwide Felony Courtroom’, proclaimed the Buenos Aires Instances. The press assertion learn:

[Argentina] has filed a grievance with the Worldwide Felony Courtroom (ICC) for the arbitrary detention and compelled disappearance of the Argentine citizen Nahuel Gallo, which occurred on December 8, 2024 within the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, pointing to Legal professional Normal Tarek William Saab within the framework of this case.

This truth constitutes a severe and flagrant violation of human rights, evidencing a scientific sample of crimes towards humanity which might be being dedicated within the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, that are clearly below the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Taken collectively, the press launch and subsequent information protection urged that a global choose or prosecutor might swiftly intervene on Gallo’s behalf. Certainly, this isn’t the primary time Argentina has made such an announcement: earlier in December, the Overseas Ministry equally introduced it had submitted a ‘grievance’ to the ICC over the siege of the Argentine embassy in Caracas. Nonetheless, the Rome Statute doesn’t allow states to file a ‘grievance’ on this method.

Though the Argentine authorities has not shared the paperwork it supplied to the ICC, it almost certainly submitted what is named an ‘Article 15 communication’ to the Workplace of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC. Underneath Article 15(1) of the Rome Statute, the OTP might start investigations ‘on the idea of data on crimes throughout the jurisdiction of the Courtroom’. Whereas the OTP receives a whole lot of communications yearly offering info on alleged crimes, largely from people and NGOs, the overwhelming majority don’t result in additional ICC motion. Article 15 communications can assist elevate public consciousness as a part of broader communication methods, however they seldom immediate speedy investigative or judicial motion.

The Venezuelan authorities, for its half, retorted:

The Argentine authorities below Milei as soon as once more places on a disgraceful spectacle, stumbling from one worldwide embarrassment to a different. Invoking the Rome Statute—clearly unfamiliar to them—to gasoline their unhealthy political obsession reveals not solely ignorance however a surprising lack of seriousness.

Argentina’s choice to invoke the ICC on this method appears to purpose in the direction of publicly criticising the Venezuelan authorities somewhat than securing a sensible decision for Gallo’s detention or the broader diplomatic disaster. As Natalie Hodgson notes, an Article 15 communication can function a method of ‘sociological criminalisation’, whereby civil society actors – or, on this case, a state – search extralegal accountability by broadcasting alleged wrongdoing, even when no near-term ICC intervention is anticipated.

Nonetheless, the ICC has already opened an investigation into potential crimes towards humanity in Venezuela. It did so in 2021, following the OTP’s conclusion that there was ‘an inexpensive foundation to consider that crimes towards humanity, notably within the context of detention, have been dedicated in Venezuela since a minimum of April 2017’. Whereas the ICC investigation continues at an apparently measured tempo, an Article 15 communication on Gallo’s case is unlikely to change its trajectory, notably given the continued bilateral tensions between Argentina and Venezuela and the still-disputed information surrounding Gallo’s detention.

Crucially, states wield far higher diplomatic and authorized assets than the NGOs and teams of residents that are inclined to submit Article 15 communications. If Argentina’s precedence is to guard Gallo, it may deploy extra direct and sustained channels of engagement (e.g., diplomatic negotiations, regional mediation, or recourse to adjudicatory our bodies). In opposition to this backdrop, Argentina’s ‘grievance’ seems, at greatest, a symbolic gesture unlikely to affect the continued ICC course of considerably.

The Request to the IACHR: Protecting Motion on Gallo’s Behalf?

Hours after saying that it had resorted to the ICC, the Argentine authorities knowledgeable that it had additionally requested provisional measures from the IACHR. It’s potential that the federal government was unaware that solely a day earlier the IACHR had already adopted precautionary measures requesting Venezuela to safeguard Gallo’s rights and well-being, make clear his custody circumstances, guarantee entry to authorized counsel and members of the family, and examine the occasions resulting in his detention to stop future recurrences (Resolución 1/2025). The choice on precautionary measures didn’t point out Argentina because the requesting celebration; as a substitute, it talked about the CASLA Institute, a Prague-based organisation that has lengthy scrutinised Maduro’s authorities.

Had the IACHR not adopted precautionary measures earlier than, the Argentine request may need helped defend Gallo. However, the Argentine authorities’s attraction to the IACHR underscores a further set of authorized hurdles tied to Venezuela’s tumultuous relationship with the Group of American States (OAS). In 2013, Venezuela withdrew from the American Conference on Human Rights, renouncing the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Courtroom of Human Rights. Shortly after, Maduro additionally denounced the OAS Constitution, thus ceasing to be topic to the jurisdiction of the IACHR.

At this time, Venezuela stays in a authorized gray space relating to its OAS membership. In 2019, OAS Secretary-Normal Luis Almagro recognised Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s appearing president. The OAS Normal Meeting additionally accepted Guaidó’s appointed consultant. Guaidó’s ‘interim authorities’ then reversed the treaty denunciations launched by Maduro’s authorities (see, for instance, right here and right here). In 2022, the interim authorities was dissolved, leaving Venezuela with no official consultant earlier than the OAS. This unsettled standing complicates the Fee’s skill to speak with Venezuelan authorities or safe the enforcement of its measures.

Underneath these situations, makes an attempt to have interaction Maduro’s authorities through the OAS are unlikely to yield tangible outcomes. Since Maduro now not considers Venezuela certain by OAS obligations, any selections from the Fee or different OAS our bodies danger being ignored. Including to the problem, solely hours after the IACHR issued its choice on provisional measures, the OAS Secretary-Normal launched a press assertion asserting that ‘the case involving gendarme Gallo constitutes against the law towards humanity below the Rome Statute of the Worldwide Felony Courtroom’, with out significant authorized or factual evaluation. As soon as once more, publicity seems to have overshadowed substantive authorized or diplomatic efforts – this time not simply on Argentina’s half however throughout the Inter-American System.

Conclusion

The Argentine authorities has legit grounds for concern: an Argentine citizen is detained in Venezuela with restricted info on his circumstances, and the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, together with the asylum seekers it shelters, has been below siege. On this setting, authorized and institutional mechanisms past conventional inter-state courts and tribunals can certainly function priceless instruments. Nonetheless, Argentina’s recourse to the ICC and the IACHR seems extra performative than sensible. The ‘grievance’ to the ICC dangers misrepresenting the Courtroom’s objective and procedures, whereas the IACHR route is undermined by Venezuela’s withdrawal from the OAS, which may now not be severely ignored.

A simpler strategy would confront not solely Gallo’s detention but in addition the overarching bilateral disaster, together with the siege of the embassy. Overseas Minister Werthein’s earlier reference to a potential mediation – facilitated by Colombia, France, or Brazil – holds extra promise on this regard. Even inviting Venezuela to just accept the jurisdiction of the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice would possibly supply Argentina a extra appropriate venue to current its claims in full. Though Venezuela is unlikely to take part, instituting proceedings would a minimum of permit Argentina to anchor its place in devices such because the Vienna Conference on Consular Relations and regional treaties on diplomatic asylum. This technique would possibly yield a extra complete account of Argentina’s place than an Article 15 communication narrowly centered on framing Gallo’s detention as against the law towards humanity. This account, in flip, would possibly present stronger groundwork for stabilising bilateral relations.

Lastly, a sustainable decision calls for grappling with the broader regional dynamics by which this battle is unfolding. Though ideological friction between Presidents Milei and Maduro has escalated bilateral tensions, this incident reveals a rising fracture in Latin American relations. Venezuela’s expulsion of the international diplomatic personnel of seven international locations and estrangement from the OAS underscores the necessity for a extra cohesive regional technique. Latin America’s authorized frameworks have traditionally supported the peaceable settlement of worldwide disputes and inter-state peace extra broadly; constructing on that custom, as a substitute of resorting to headline-grabbing authorized manoeuvres, stays probably the most promising path to a permanent answer.