Leading expert in the field of International Law, Max Hillaire, PhD, who will be sharing his vast knowledge from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday at Teddy’s at Five Corners in Christiansted, said this week the U.S. Virgin Islands has little say in military maneuvers in and around the territory.
Hillare, who has spent the last week on phone calls with other experts discussing the situation in Venezuela, is expected to share his insights at Friday’s lecture and book signing.
Meanwhile, in an interview Saturday, he was clear, “The U.S. Virgin Islands doesn’t have much to say” in how the ports may be used for ongoing military operations in the region. “We are a colony.”
Referring to the U.S. warship dockings on St. Thomas and St. Croix, dubbed as “shore leave” by the territory’s administration and which caused consternation in some residents in recent months, Hillaire said, “The governor has cozied up to the president for whatever reasons.”
Of greater concern, Hilaire said, was the closure of airspace over the region on and around Jan. 3, the day of the invasion of Venezuela by the United States. “People could and may have died,” he said, due to medical emergencies that would have routinely seen them airlifted to larger medical facilities better equipped to handle their specific physical condition.
Less lethal, but equally concerning, Hilaire pointed to the obvious economic “chaos” born of the invasion, irrefutably breaching all international law agreements.
His chapter on Venezuela from his 2024 book “International Law and Contemporary Global Challenges” might be considered prescient by those less studied in Hilaire’s areas of expertise.
A few sentences from the book, which is a compilation of Hilaire’s lectures, that seem particularly prophetic are as follows:
“The political crisis in Venezuela has been brewing for more than five years; in fact, since the death of Hugo Chavez. It came to a head when the newly elected president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself the interim president of Venezuela at a rally in Caracas. The whole matter appeared to have been staged, as Guiadó was in secret talks with the Trump administration and a few other Latin American governments to win their support.”
Hilaire goes on to say, “the Venezuela crisis raises several important international law concerns, and it has implication for other states and for international law in general.”
“Those concerns include how and if the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela might justify “the use of military force: and the legality of the use of force to oust the Maduro regime, unilaterally or collectively without the authorization of the [Unted Nations] Security Council.”
Closer to home, Hilaire could not say why military aircraft took off from St. Croix, thus invading the airspace closed to medical emergencies and tourists and others on the day of the invasion, but he did say with certainty, “We really don’t know where this … is going.”
