The January 3 US military operation in Venezuela seizing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro was in equal measure audacious and illegal under international law.
It’s even more breathtaking that the Trump administration now says it “will run” Venezuela on an interim basis. The US will also seek to control the country’s vast oil interests.
Irrespective of its contested domestic politics and the chequered record of the Maduro regime, Venezuela remains a recognised sovereign state under international law. This includes permanent sovereignty over its natural resources. Any US seizure of Venezuelan oil would be a further violation of international law.
But the US hasn’t tried to justify its strikes with international law. Instead, the Trump administration is using domestic laws to ignore global rules entirely. It’s a new strategy, but one with no international legal basis, regardless of how you slice it.
Both the first and second Trump administrations have shown animosity towards the Maduro regime.
The US government has consistently raised two key issues: the role Venezuela has played in illegal Latin American migrants entering the US, and support for the flow of drugs into the US.
Both were major issues during the 2024 US presidential election campaign and are key planks of the Trump MAGA movement.
The legitimacy of the Maduro regime has also been called into question. There were disputed election outcomes in 2018 and 2024.
However, the legitimacy or otherwise of the Maduro regime is not a legal basis for a military intervention.
Rather, the Trump administration is relying on US domestic laws to justify its actions in Venezuela. A 2020 US grand jury indictment of Maduro and his wife for drug trafficking underpins the legal argument.
That Maduro has been paraded before television cameras in New York like any other detained prisoner further emphasises the importance of US domestic law in this matter. It’s unprecedented for a foreign head of state to be arrested in their presidential compound, detained and legally processed in the US within the space of 24 hours.
Maduro and his wife will eventually face trial on various criminal charges. That Nicolás Maduro is the Venezuelan President and therefore entitled to head of state immunity from criminal prosecution before a US court will presumably be set aside as the Trump administration does not recognise the legitimacy of his presidency.
Likewise, US courts will probably not bother themselves too much with the manner of Maduro’s arrest via US extra-territorial law enforcement in a foreign state.
In the normal course of events, once the US grand jury indictment had been released, Maduro’s extradition could have been sought via a US arrest warrant.
The Trump administration likely assumed any such extradition request would have been ignored. So, instead, it used the US military to enter Maduro’s Caracas compound to facilitate his arrest by Department of Justice officials.
At the core of how the Trump administration has advanced its legal campaign against Venezuela and the Maduro regime has been its reliance on US law.
Starting in September, the US began targeting small boats linked to the Venezuelan drug trade through military strikes at sea.
The US justified these, in part, on the basis of extra-territorial enforcement of US laws against known cartels shipping drugs throughout the Caribbean to American entry points.
In December, the US Coast Guard began to pursue and seize oil tankers subject to US sanctions. This conduct was also justified on the basis of US law, with the sanctioned tankers being stopped and seized in waters off the Venezuelan coast on the high seas.
US law enforcement has now been extended to the seizure, arrest and detention of the Maduros.
By relying on the argument that the US is enforcing its own laws, the Trump administration provides itself with a domestic legal basis for its actions, no matter what international law may have to say.
This is a clear case of US exceptionalism towards international law, of which there is a long history. It reflects a US view that its own laws prevail over all other law. According to the US, international law should not unduly limit its ability to advance its national interests.
It’s also based on an assumption that any international opprobrium it may encounter can be managed or safely ignored.
There are three immediate regional and global lessons from these events.
First, the Trump administration has shown a vast capacity to sanction whomever it chooses based on domestic political whims. Individuals, entities and corporations have all been targeted through presidential executive orders, laws and force. Many will be on high alert.
Second, while the cumulative US actions against Venezuela violate the United Nations Charter, the UN will be virtually powerless to constrain the US. This is due to the veto powers held by the permanent members of its Security Council, not to mention Trump’s disdain for the UN generally.
Third, US allies and partners need to be very aware of the ramifications of this exceptional US law enforcement practice.
If, down the line, the US military encounters a more robust response than it did in Venezuela, it could trigger NATO treaty obligations for European countries and Canada, and ANZUS treaty obligations for Australia.
So, if the US continues down this road, there’s every chance the consequences of its interventionism could be felt by many around the world.
The Conversation
(Donald Rothwell is Professor of International Law, Australian National University.)
