‘Sovereignty violation’, ‘Dangerous precedent’: Legal issues around the US capture of Venezuela’s Maduro

In the aftermath of the US government’s extraordinary capture of the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and its military attacks on the capital Caracas, questions about the legality of the exercise have been raised in several quarters.

For the United States, the stated aim of Operation “Absolute Resolve” was to rid the country of a man they claimed became the President by stealing the 2024 Venezuelan elections. More pressingly, he was indicted on charges such as “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy” and “cocaine importation conspiracy” against the US by a federal court in New York.

The indictment said, “For over 25 years, leaders of Venezuela have abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States. Nicolas Maduro Moros, the defendant, is at the forefront of that corruption.” However, the military action has been criticised as disproportionate and unprecedented, even in the realm of the country’s history of interventions in South America for securing its own interests, such as oil in Venezuela’s case.

Here is what critics — ranging from newspaper editorials, legal experts and the UN Secretary-General — have said, and what international norms and rules hold.

Criticisms of the US operation have centred on the grounds of proportionality, whether drug smuggling was an adequate justification to engineer Maduro’s removal, and how it impacts the idea of a rules-based world order.

Marc Weller, professor and Director of the International Law Programme at the Chatham House think tank, described the events as “clearly a significant violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and the UN Charter.”

Under Article 2 (4), the charter states that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” The exception to that is Article 51, which recognises “The inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.”

Many legal experts have said that the US government, citing drug trafficking, would not meet the threshold for “armed attack”, even if it is a fact that narcotics overdoses have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in recent years. “In international law, only a kinetic assault with military or similar means qualifies as a trigger for self-defence,” Weller wrote.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said he was “Deeply alarmed by the recent escalation in Venezuela,” and that “These developments constitute a dangerous precedent.”

That the action happened under Trump 2.0, where many existing norms about conduct in global affairs have already been dispensed with, also matters in terms of signalling to other nations. One argument is that it may embolden countries such as China to launch their own military actions elsewhere, like in Taiwan, with little justification for it.

The Editorial Board of The New York Times poked holes in the drug trafficking argument, writing that Venezuela was not a “meaningful producer” of the deadly opioid fentanyl, which is a key focus area of the US government. Rather, it said the action was part of a realignment under the new National Security Strategy released in December 2025, which outlined the need “to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere.”

The NYT wrote, “Venezuela has apparently become the first country subject to this latter-day imperialism, and it represents a dangerous and illegal approach to America’s place in the world.”

In Nicaragua vs United States of America (1984), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was considering the matter of the US using military force against the Central American country. Among other things, the US was supporting the activities of the contras, the right-wing groups who sought to dislodge the ruling Left government, given its Cold War objectives and the goal of containing Communism.

However, the court held that the action in response to those objectives was disproportionate and went against the sovereignty of Nicaragua.

A similar case to Maduro’s was the United States’ capture of General Manuel Noriega, then the leader of Panama, in 1989. While he was earlier an ally of the US, suspicions arose about his loyalties, and the US responded by indicting him for drug-related charges. In this case, however, US troops also entered the country. He was ultimately tried and sentenced in the US.

The UN General Assembly condemned the invasion of Panama, but that did little to change the situation at hand. Nicholas Creel, a law professor at Georgia College and State University, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that during his trial, Noriega argued that “his forcible military abduction violated international law and the Panamanian government’s sovereignty, thereby depriving courts of jurisdiction.”

However, the courts rejected his argument by citing an 1886 case where “the justices unanimously held that even forcible abduction doesn’t strip courts of jurisdiction over defendants who are physically present in court. The judges refused to examine whether the military operation violated international law, declaring that a nonjusticiable political question.” He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and Maduro may face a similar fate.