At least one part of the U.S. campaign against Venezuela makes sense: taking on the ‘dark fleet’

Michael Byers teaches global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia. Amid a months-long conflict where the United States has been enacting air strikes against small boats off the coast of Venezuela – which many experts have deemed illegal – the Donald Trump administration last week tried a less violent, more legally acceptable way to press Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down. On Dec. 11, U.S. forces seized a tanker carrying oil from Venezuela to China, and while this was decried by Caracas as piracy, the action was consistent with international law: The ship was pretending…