The events of 3 January 2026, coordinated U.S. airstrikes in Caracas and the extra-judicial apprehension of President Nicolás Maduro, sent shockwaves through the international community. This operation marks a stark departure in Washington’s posture: a decisive transformation from its self-styled role as the “world’s policeman” into something more akin to a “global vigilante”—cloaked in the rhetoric of “America First.”
Beyond its immediate geopolitical impact, the intervention forces a harrowing reappraisal of whether international law retains any functional validity.
This military incursion and the forcible abduction of a sitting head of state find no refuge whatsoever within the framework of international law. The operation represents a flagrant breach of Venezuela’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty, in direct violation of the prohibition on the use of force enshrined in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. Moreover, by disregarding the established principles of customary international law concerning the immunity of heads of state, and by resorting to force absent any credible claim of self-defence, the United States has set itself in stark opposition to the foundational tenets of global jurisprudence.
What is particularly striking, however, is the White House’s apparent abandonment of any attempt to provide a ‘legalistic veneer’ for these transgressions. Unlike past interventions, which sought legal cover even when violating jus cogens (peremptory norms), this operation largely abandoned legal pretense.
Instead, President Donald Trump’s subsequent rhetoric was strikingly blunt, framing the intervention explicitly as a strategic manoeuvre to secure Venezuelan oil and rare earth elements, for American advantage. Only later was a veneer of legality retroactively applied, with the administration announcing that U.S. forces had taken President Nicolás Maduro and his wife to New York to face drug and weapons charges. This crude articulation of motive reflects a distinctly neo-colonial mindset.
New Wine in Old Bottles: From Ideological Struggle to Resource Colonialism
US intervention in Latin America, both overt and covert, has shaped the region’s history for over two centuries. Since the 1950s, the United States has used economic coercion, military invasions, and covert operations, such as the 1954 Guatemalan coup, the 1965 Dominican Republic intervention, the 1973 Chile coup, support for Nicaraguan Contras, and the invasions of Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989), to install favourable regimes and preserve its influence in what it considers its strategic sphere.
Traditionally, U.S. hegemony invoked ideological justifications such as ‘containment of communism’ or ‘promotion of democracy’ This intervention, however, marks a departure into brazenly imperial resource predation. President Trump’s statements that Venezuela’s hydrocarbon reserves and strategic mineral wealth would henceforth be harnessed for American interests exemplifies this trend.
Whilst the bombardment of a sovereign capital and the abduction of a sitting president are inherently political acts, Washington’s subsequent manoeuvres reveal a shift in strategy. The apparent decision to eschew the immediate appointment of a puppet administration, opting instead to ‘permit’ Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to remain as an interim leader—conditional upon her absolute compliance with Washington’s dictates—clarifies the primary objective. The goal was not merely ‘regime change’ in the traditional sense, but the securitisation of economic assets and the pursuit of regional hegemony.
In this context, the Venezuelan operation must be interpreted as a qualitative rupture within a global legal order already suffering from advanced erosion. While the 20th century ostensibly heralded the end of colonial empires through the triumph of self-determination and the principle of sovereign equality, the re-emergence of resource-driven military interventionism signals the dawn of ‘Colonialism 2.0’. This regression demonstrates that the international order has become functionally impotent when confronted by the imperatives of Great Power interests. This shift cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader degradation of international law, which is increasingly relegated to a subordinate status beneath the exercise of raw power.
This historical continuum reveals not only the audacity of the Venezuelan, but also the systematic hollowing out of international legal norms.
When Norms Fall Silent: The Ascendancy of Raw Power
International law, in its foundational philosophy, was conceived as a framework to circumscribe the exercise of raw power, to govern interstate relations through normative structures, and to resolve conflicts through pacific settlement. However, it is now palpably evident that this ideal has succumbed to a profound crisis of functionality and legitimacy. International legal norms and institutions no longer possess the authority to constrain the unilateralism of Great Powers; instead, legal principles have been relegated to a subordinate status to geopolitical imperatives. The normative architecture that once constituted the backbone of the global order is increasingly reduced to a mere symbolic reference point.
A primary symptom of this malaise is the evident incapacity of international legal mechanisms to adjudicate substantive disputes. The UN Security Council, tasked with the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, has been rendered impotent by the veto. The judgments of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are frequently ignored, while the warrants and decrees of the International Criminal Court (ICC) are systematically ignored when they conflict with the interests of major powers. Consequently, legal processes are either disregarded or emasculated through political pressure the moment they contravene the ambitions of hegemonic states. Thus, international law ceases to function as an arbiter of justice, devolving into a set of procedural formalities that operate only so long as they do not disturb the interests of the powerful.
This state of affairs was not reached abruptly. The current enfeeblement of international law is the culmination of a systematic erosion of norms and a protracted chain of violations. Powerful actors have long selectively interpreted the law, accentuating certain norms while deliberately obfuscating others—, to lend their actions a veneer of legitimacy. Ambiguous constructs such as “exceptional circumstances”, “extraordinary threats”, and “national security” have become instruments for stretching the boundaries of legality. Law, therefore, has transitioned from a universal and binding system of norms into a malleable tool of political expediency.
Furthermore, the moral and normative authority of international law has suffered an irreversible erosion. The failure to impose meaningful sanctions in the face of human rights violations, illegal occupations, and forced regime changes has hollowed out the deterrent capacity of the law. The reality that violating international rules has become almost cost-free conveys a stark message to the global community: if one’s power is sufficiently vast, the law poses no obstacle. This signals a transition from the “rule of law” to a de facto “rule of force”.
The contemporary crisis of international law is also fundamentally a legitimacy crisis. Legal rules derive their legitimacy not merely from their codification, but from their fair, consistent, and universal application. Yet, contemporary law appears rigid when applied to weaker states, while remaining flexible or altogether invisible when addressing the conduct of dominant actors. This practice of selective enforcement undermines the claim of universality and transforms international law into a reflection of the global power equilibrium rather than an instrument of global justice.
Ultimately, international law is undergoing an existential ordeal. If the law perpetually retreats before the arbitrary will of the powerful, and if institutions lose their capacity for conflict resolution, we are no longer witnessing a functional “legal order”. Instead, we are observing power politics merely masquerading in legal dialect. The intervention in Venezuela—where the aggressor felt no compulsion to even invoke a legal pretext—stands as a definitive testament to the depth of this systemic decay.
‘America First’ and the Dissolution of the Global Order
Furthermore, the ‘America First’ doctrine, cemented as the official strategic posture of the White House under the Trump administration, has catalysed the functional and institutional decay of the international legal order.
During the post-Cold War era, the narrative of American global leadership, despite its inherent hypocrisies and self-serving power politics, maintained a semblance of universalist rhetoric. This was a form of hegemonic paternalism: when ‘Uncle Sam’ entered one’s orchard, he might have harvested the finest apples for himself, but he seldom failed to offer a carton of juice in return. While the lion’s share of the spoils in European security, Middle Eastern proxy conflicts, and Asia-Pacific geopolitics invariably flowed to Washington, other major actors were afforded sufficient stakes to remain invested in the system. This order, though far from equitable, provided a degree of predictability based on complex interdependence.
However, Trump’s second term has fundamentally dismantled this framework. US foreign policy has devolved from a model of ‘predominant leadership’, which involved at least a modicum of reciprocal benefit, to an unalloyed practice of ‘predation’. For the current administration, diplomacy is no longer conducted through the prism of alliances, norms, or institutional responsibilities; instead, it is driven by short-term transactional gains and raw economic extraction.
This transactional ruthlessness has similarly destabilised the European security architecture. By characterising military aid to Ukraine as ‘profligacy’, Washington has coerced Kyiv into negotiations that undermine the sacrosanct principle of territorial integrity, effectively entertaining the recognition of Russian control over occupied territories. Crucially, continued military support was rendered contingent upon Ukraine signing a ‘Critical Minerals Agreement’—a deeply asymmetrical arrangement that prioritises American industrial interests over Ukrainian sovereignty.
Ultimately, the ‘America First’ paradigm regards international law not as a binding framework, but as an inconvenience to be bypassed at will. The normalisation of economic extortion and the commodification of security guarantees have rendered the global system profoundly volatile.
We have reached a juncture where the ‘rule of power’ has eclipsed the rules-based order, culminating in the abduction of a head of state. Unless this trajectory is decisively reversed, and unless global collective interests and a just order are allowed to prevail over the unilateral interests of the powerful, the international arena will become increasingly belligerent and unpredictable, ushering in a world in which power does not merely shape norms but actively supplants them.
