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This is the BBC, talking about something which might be a criminal offence, for which no-one has been (as yet) convicted. They will absolutely use the word 'alleged'. If someone is standing over a pile of corpses with a gun and saying "I did it, and I'd do it again", the BBC will still refer to this as alleged murder unless or until there is a conviction, as will most other high-quality journalistic outlets; it's a fairly standard convention.
> Except you definitely CAN annex a foreign country. How does he think the US got Texas, Hawaii, California, Nevada, Utah, and overseas territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa?
By sneakily doing it before the United Nations Charter, one assumes. (Also some of these were via cession, which is a bit different).
Well isn't that convenient that after the world powers grabbed everything they could, they suddenly decided it's not acceptable anymore and everyone else should stop doing it while they get to keep their newly acquired land.
Denmark tried to offhand the islands multiple times.
"The islands were eventually sold to the United States for $25 million ($613,570,000 in 2024) which took over the administration on 31 March 1917 and renamed the territory the United States Virgin Islands."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_West_Indies
The controversy is more how it got in the hands of Denmark in the first place.
If a country's industry benefited from Freon-based as refrigerants, then bans their use because of Freon's effect on the ozone layer, is it hypocrisy for that country to urge other countries to agree to the Montreal Protocol?
Several countries made a lot of money from whaling. Most of them have agreed to stop commercial whaling. Is it hypocrisy for them to pressure the few holdouts to agree to the ban?
The US benefited from genocide of Native Americans, so therefore the US cannot ever condemn genocide without being a hypocrite?
We all know about European colonialism and its negative effects on others as they plundered the world to enrich themselves.
Now you say that Europe (and its former colonies who followed the same footsteps) cannot call for de-colonialism or a post-colonial world, as doing so makes them hypocrites? Instead they should, what, call for a restoration of the divine right of kings?
In real life they've made at least some effort to change. It may be too little for you, but that's where their protests come from.
There are different meanings for annexation. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation
"Annexation,[1] in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory.[2] In current international law, it is generally held to be an illegal act.[3] Annexation is a unilateral act where territory is seized and held by one state,[4] as distinct from the complete conquest of another country,[a][7][8] and differs from cession, in which territory is given or sold through treaty."
While the Republic of Texas was annexed into the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_annexation), it was voluntary, and does not fit that modern definition in international law.
Puerto Rico was also transferred to the US by cession, because it was "as a result of a treaty concluded between the States concerned" (quoting [3] above), that being the 1898 Treaty of Paris.
It's also seen in the name "Mexican Cession" to describe the lands transferred to the US as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, even though we often say the region was annexed by the U.S. to become, for example, Utah and Nevada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession
I consider the US acquisition of Republic of Hawaii to be annexation, and would add the acquisition of the Philippines in 1898 to your list. The American Anti-Imperialist League was right.
A goal of the post-war anti-colonization movement was to delegitimize the use force to obtain territory, which is why [3] also points out "Under present international law, annexation no longer constitutes a legally admissible mode of acquisition of territory as it violates the prohibition of the threat or use of force. Therefore annexations must not be recognized as legal." (Emphasis mine.)