The Capture of Nicolás Maduro, Drug Trafficking Allegations, and the Violation of International Law

 

In the early hours of 3 January 2026, the international legal order faced one of its most serious tests in recent decades when the United States launched a large-scale military operation on Venezuelan territory, culminating in the capture of sitting President Nicolás Maduro and his forcible transfer to the United States to face criminal charges. The operation, known as Operation Absolute Resolve, involved extensive airstrikes across northern Venezuela, the deployment of special forces in Caracas, and resulted in civilian and military casualties. U.S. officials justified the action primarily on the basis that Maduro presided over a “narco-state” and personally facilitated the flow of illicit drugs into the United States. Yet when examined through the framework of international law, the operation represents a clear and multifaceted violation of foundational legal principles governing the use of force, sovereignty, and non-intervention.

 

The legal analysis must begin with Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The scale and nature of the U.S. operation—airstrikes involving more than 150 aircraft, attacks on military and strategic infrastructure, and the insertion of special forces into the Venezuelan capital—unambiguously constitute a use of force of the highest order. The operation was conducted without authorization from the UN Security Council, and the fact that the Council was convened only after the strikes underscores the unilateral character of the action. As such, the operation falls squarely within the category of conduct the UN Charter was designed to prevent.

 

The United States has sought to frame its actions as a matter of national self-defense and counter-narcoterrorism, arguing that Maduro’s alleged involvement in drug trafficking posed a direct threat to U.S. security. However, international law draws a firm distinction between criminal conduct and armed attack. Under Article 51 of the UN Charter, the right to self-defense arises only in response to an actual or imminent armed attack. Even large-scale drug trafficking, whether or not state-facilitated, does not meet this threshold. The jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice has consistently rejected attempts to expand self-defense to include indirect harms such as economic damage or transnational criminal activity.

 

This distinction is not technical; it is structural. International law deliberately separates law enforcement from warfare. Drug trafficking is addressed through extradition treaties, mutual legal assistance, sanctions, and international cooperation mechanisms—not through aerial bombardment or special forces raids on foreign capitals. To accept drug trafficking allegations as a lawful basis for the use of force would collapse the boundary between criminal justice and military action, effectively granting powerful states a license to use armed force wherever they allege criminal harm.

 

The operation further constitutes a grave violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and the principle of non-intervention. Sovereignty entails the exclusive authority of a state over its territory, political system, and natural resources, free from external coercion. The forcible entry of U.S. forces, the capture of Venezuela’s sitting president, and subsequent public declarations that the United States would “run” Venezuela during a transition period represent a direct assault on that principle. Statements by U.S. officials regarding the seizure and management of Venezuelan oil resources reinforce the conclusion that the operation was not limited to law enforcement objectives but was embedded in a broader regime-change agenda.

 

Equally significant is the issue of head-of-state immunity. Under customary international law, a sitting head of state enjoys personal immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of foreign courts, regardless of the nature of the alleged crimes. This principle exists to preserve international stability and prevent coercive enforcement actions between states. The charges against Maduro arise solely from U.S. domestic law and are not supported by any international judicial mandate. Domestic indictments, however serious, do not override immunity nor justify military abduction from another state’s territory.

 

At this point, it is necessary to situate the January 2026 operation within a broader legal and historical framework that explains not only how international law was violated, but why such violations persist. As Dan Kovalik explains in his book No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using “Humanitarian” Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests, the core principles of the UN Charter are neither ambiguous nor aspirational; they are binding legal rules deliberately designed to restrain powerful states.

 

Kovalik emphasizes that the UN Charter is grounded in the principle of sovereign equality and in the overarching objective of maintaining international peace and security. To achieve this, each state must respect the sovereignty of all others and must not use force, or even threaten the use of force, against another nation. The Charter further requires that states “shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means.” These are central dictates of international law. Yet, as Kovalik observes, one would be forgiven for overlooking them in light of the regularity with which political leaders—including U.S. President Donald Trump—have openly threatened invasion, annihilation, or regime removal in states such as North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.

 

Kovalik further draws attention to Article 2(7) of the UN Charter, which explicitly prohibits intervention in matters that fall within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. Crucially, he highlights that the origins of Article 2(7) reflect a deliberate effort to protect developing nations of the Global South from coercive intervention by powerful states of the Global North. The provision is therefore not merely procedural; it is a substantive legal safeguard against domination, resource exploitation, and political subordination.

 

When this framework is applied to Venezuela, the capture of Nicolás Maduro appears not as an isolated or exceptional act, but as the culmination of a prolonged pattern of pressure involving sanctions, military threats, naval deployments, and economic coercion. Kovalik characterizes such measures as forms of illegal aggression under international law, designed to “squeeze the population” and manufacture humanitarian crises that are later invoked to justify regime change. From this perspective, the economic suffering often attributed to domestic mismanagement must also be understood as the foreseeable—and, in Kovalik’s view, intended—result of a regime-change strategy that violates the UN Charter.

 

This analysis also challenges the narrative that portrays Maduro as an illegitimate ruler devoid of domestic support. While electoral processes in Venezuela remain contested, Kovalik points to the 2024 presidential election and subsequent municipal elections as evidence that the government retains a base of popular support, particularly among poorer sectors who perceive it as resisting foreign domination. Whether one accepts this political assessment or not, the legal implication is clear: disputes over legitimacy do not authorize external military intervention. International law does not permit states to determine the validity of foreign governments through force.

 

The civilian harm resulting from the January 2026 operation further compounds its illegality. Reports of civilian deaths, strikes on urban areas, and damage to civilian infrastructure raise serious concerns under international humanitarian law, particularly with respect to the principles of distinction and proportionality. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that an armed conflict existed, the legality of strikes causing civilian casualties in residential areas would remain highly questionable.

 

Beyond its immediate consequences, the operation carries profound systemic implications. By justifying the removal of a foreign head of state through allegations of drug trafficking and unilateral military force, the United States sets a precedent that risks normalizing coercive intervention as a tool of political transformation. As Kovalik and other commentators warn, this signals a shift away from a rules-based international order toward one governed by power, spheres of influence, and resource control.

 

In conclusion, the capture of Nicolás Maduro cannot be reconciled with international law, even when viewed through the lens of the United States’ drug-trafficking allegations. Those allegations may explain the political motivations behind the operation, but they do not provide legal justification for the use of force, the violation of sovereignty, or the abduction of a sitting head of state. As the UN Charter makes clear, international disputes must be resolved through peaceful means, not unilateral military action. The January 2026 operation represents not the enforcement of law, but its displacement by force—an outcome that threatens the integrity of the international legal order itself.