On 8 December 2024, Venezuelan authorities detained Argentine military police officer Nahuel Agustín Gallo after he entered the country from Colombia. According to Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gallo first travelled by car to Chile, then by plane to Bogotá, and finally by taxi to the Venezuelan border in order to reunite with his Venezuelan partner and their two-year-old child. On 27 December, the Venezuelan Public Ministry, led by Attorney-General Tarek William Saab, announced criminal charges against Gallo for alleged terrorist activities, accusing him of concealing a ‘criminal plan’ under the guise of a family visit. Argentina’s Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein dismissed these accusations, calling the detention arbitrary and insisting that Gallo’s sole purpose was to spend time with his family.
This incident has heightened diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Since March 2024, Venezuela has closed its airspace to any aircraft coming from or going to Argentina in response to Argentina’s handover of a seized Venezuelan cargo plane to US authorities. In July, after the Venezuelan presidential election, diplomatic relations between Argentina and Venezuela ultimately broke down. The Argentine government under Javier Milei was among the 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 government expelled Argentina’s diplomatic and consular personnel from Venezuela. The departure of Argentine officers left six Venezuelan asylum seekers stranded within the diplomatic premises, and the compound was placed under Brazil’s custody. The embassy has since been surrounded by police officers and subjected to power outages and food shortages, sparking fear for the safety of the asylum seekers – particularly in light of Ecuador’s intrusion into the Mexican Embassy in Quito in April 2024.
On 2 January 2025, the Argentine government announced that it had filed a ‘complaint before the International Criminal Court (ICC)’ based on the ‘arbitrary detention and forced disappearance’ of Nahuel Gallo. Hours later, Argentina announced it had also requested provisional measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
This post examines the Argentine government’s legal responses to the detention of Nahuel Gallo and argues that they miss the chance to comprehensively address the diplomatic tensions. It first contends that Argentina’s resort to the ICC is primarily symbolic and, while it could be argued that it may serve to bring attention to human rights abuses in Venezuela, it is ultimately unlikely to help protect Gallo. It then suggests that, while seemingly more suitable, Argentina’s request to the IACHR will also face serious hurdles to either protect Gallo or help solve the broader bilateral conflict. Overall, the post emphasises that a genuine response to the growing tensions requires a serious commitment to international dispute resolution.
The ‘Complaint’ before the ICC: A Strategy in Search of Purpose?
Argentine media quickly amplified the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ announcement that the government had lodged a ‘complaint’ with the ICC. ‘Argentina takes Venezuela to [the] International Criminal Court’, proclaimed the Buenos Aires Times. The press statement read:
[Argentina] has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the arbitrary detention and forced disappearance of the Argentine citizen Nahuel Gallo, which occurred on December 8, 2024 in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, pointing to Attorney General Tarek William Saab in the framework of this case.
This fact constitutes a serious and flagrant violation of human rights, evidencing a systematic pattern of crimes against humanity that are being committed in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which are clearly under the jurisdiction of the ICC.
Taken together, the press release and subsequent news coverage suggested that an international judge or prosecutor could swiftly intervene on Gallo’s behalf. Indeed, this is not the first time Argentina has made such an announcement: earlier in December, the Foreign Ministry similarly announced it had submitted a ‘complaint’ to the ICC over the siege of the Argentine embassy in Caracas. However, the Rome Statute does not permit states to file a ‘complaint’ in this manner.
Although the Argentine government has not shared the documents it provided to the ICC, it most likely submitted what is known as an ‘Article 15 communication’ to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC. Under Article 15(1) of the Rome Statute, the OTP may begin investigations ‘on the basis of information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court’. While the OTP receives hundreds of communications annually providing information on alleged crimes, mostly from individuals and NGOs, the vast majority do not lead to further ICC action. Article 15 communications can help raise public awareness as part of broader communication strategies, but they seldom prompt immediate investigative or judicial action.
The Venezuelan government, for its part, retorted:
The Argentine government under Milei once again puts on a disgraceful spectacle, stumbling from one international embarrassment to another. Invoking the Rome Statute—clearly unfamiliar to them—to fuel their unhealthy political obsession reveals not only ignorance but a shocking lack of seriousness.
Argentina’s decision to invoke the ICC in this manner seems to aim towards publicly criticising the Venezuelan government rather than securing a practical resolution for Gallo’s detention or the broader diplomatic crisis. As Natalie Hodgson notes, an Article 15 communication can serve as a strategy of ‘sociological criminalisation’, whereby civil society actors – or, in this case, a state – seek extralegal accountability by broadcasting alleged wrongdoing, even if no near-term ICC intervention is anticipated.
However, the ICC has already opened an investigation into potential crimes against humanity in Venezuela. It did so in 2021, following the OTP’s conclusion that there was ‘a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity, particularly in the context of detention, have been committed in Venezuela since at least April 2017’. While the ICC investigation continues at an apparently measured pace, an Article 15 communication on Gallo’s case is unlikely to alter its trajectory, particularly given the ongoing bilateral tensions between Argentina and Venezuela and the still-disputed facts surrounding Gallo’s detention.
Crucially, states wield far greater diplomatic and legal resources than the NGOs and groups of citizens that tend to submit Article 15 communications. If Argentina’s priority is to protect Gallo, it can deploy more direct and sustained channels of engagement (e.g., diplomatic negotiations, regional mediation, or recourse to adjudicatory bodies). Against this backdrop, Argentina’s ‘complaint’ appears, at best, a symbolic gesture unlikely to influence the ongoing ICC process significantly.
The Request to the IACHR: Protective Action on Gallo’s Behalf?
Hours after announcing that it had resorted to the ICC, the Argentine government informed that it had also requested provisional measures from the IACHR. It is possible that the government was unaware that only a day earlier the IACHR had already adopted precautionary measures requesting Venezuela to safeguard Gallo’s rights and well-being, clarify his custody circumstances, ensure access to legal counsel and family members, and investigate the events leading to his detention to prevent future recurrences (Resolución 1/2025). The decision on precautionary measures did not mention Argentina as the requesting party; instead, it mentioned the CASLA Institute, a Prague-based organisation that has long scrutinised Maduro’s government.
Had the IACHR not adopted precautionary measures before, the Argentine request might have helped protect Gallo. Nevertheless, the Argentine government’s appeal to the IACHR underscores an additional set of legal hurdles tied to Venezuela’s tumultuous relationship with the Organization of American States (OAS). In 2013, Venezuela withdrew from the American Convention on Human Rights, renouncing the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Shortly after, Maduro also denounced the OAS Charter, thus ceasing to be subject to the jurisdiction of the IACHR.
Today, Venezuela remains in a legal grey area regarding its OAS membership. In 2019, OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro recognised Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s acting president. The OAS General Assembly also accepted Guaidó’s appointed representative. Guaidó’s ‘interim government’ then reversed the treaty denunciations introduced by Maduro’s government (see, for example, here and here). In 2022, the interim government was dissolved, leaving Venezuela with no official representative before the OAS. This unsettled status complicates the Commission’s ability to communicate with Venezuelan authorities or secure the enforcement of its measures.
Under these conditions, attempts to engage Maduro’s government via the OAS are unlikely to yield tangible results. Since Maduro no longer considers Venezuela bound by OAS obligations, any decisions from the Commission or other OAS bodies risk being ignored. Adding to the challenge, only hours after the IACHR issued its decision on provisional measures, the OAS Secretary-General released a press statement asserting that ‘the case involving gendarme Gallo constitutes a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’, without meaningful legal or factual analysis. Once again, publicity appears to have overshadowed substantive legal or diplomatic efforts – this time not just on Argentina’s part but across the Inter-American System.
Conclusion
The Argentine government has legitimate grounds for concern: an Argentine citizen is detained in Venezuela with limited information on his circumstances, and the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, along with the asylum seekers it shelters, has been under siege. In this setting, legal and institutional mechanisms beyond traditional inter-state courts and tribunals can indeed serve as valuable tools. However, Argentina’s recourse to the ICC and the IACHR appears more performative than practical. The ‘complaint’ to the ICC risks misrepresenting the Court’s purpose and procedures, while the IACHR route is undermined by Venezuela’s withdrawal from the OAS, which can no longer be seriously ignored.
A more effective approach would confront not only Gallo’s detention but also the overarching bilateral crisis, including the siege of the embassy. Foreign Minister Werthein’s earlier reference to a possible mediation – facilitated by Colombia, France, or Brazil – holds more promise in this regard. Even inviting Venezuela to accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice might offer Argentina a more suitable venue to present its claims in full. Although Venezuela is unlikely to participate, instituting proceedings would at least allow Argentina to anchor its position in instruments such as the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and regional treaties on diplomatic asylum. This strategy might yield a more comprehensive account of Argentina’s position than an Article 15 communication narrowly focused on framing Gallo’s detention as a crime against humanity. This account, in turn, might provide stronger groundwork for stabilising bilateral relations.
Finally, a sustainable resolution demands grappling with the broader regional dynamics in which this conflict is unfolding. Although ideological friction between Presidents Milei and Maduro has escalated bilateral tensions, this incident reveals a growing fracture in Latin American relations. Venezuela’s expulsion of the foreign diplomatic personnel of seven countries and estrangement from the OAS underscores the need for a more cohesive regional strategy. Latin America’s legal frameworks have historically supported the peaceful settlement of international disputes and inter-state peace more broadly; building on that tradition, instead of resorting to headline-grabbing legal manoeuvres, remains the most promising path to an enduring solution.
