Jeffrey Sachs criticizes U.S. for forcibly seizing Venezuelan President Maduro

Jeffrey Sachs criticized the U.S. for breaching the UN charter in forcibly seizing and taking Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro out of his country. Sachs, president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, spoke at the UN Security Council's emergency meetings on Venezuela on Monday. 

He stated that since 1947, the United States foreign policy has repeatedly employed force, covert action and political manipulation to bring about regime change in other countries. This is a matter of carefully documented historical record.

He noted that Since 1989, major United States regime change operations undertaken without authorization by the Security Council have included, among the most consequential, Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria beginning in 2011, Honduras 2009, Ukraine 2014 and Venezuela from 2002 onward. The methods employed are well established and well documented.

He also expressed the belief that peace and the survival of humanity depend on whether the United Nations Charter remains a living instrument of international law or is allowed to wither into irrelevance.