Venezuela: Escalating an Existing Crisis Through Force Is No Substitute for International Justice

No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) condemns in the strongest terms the unilateral military action carried out by the United States in Venezuela on 3 January 2026, which resulted in the forcible removal of President Nicolás Maduro.

This action was conducted without any lawful basis. Any claim of self-defence has no plausible basis under international law, and there is no UN Security Council Mandate. It stands in blatant breach of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter (Prohibition of Threat or Use of Force), as well as a serious violation of U.S. domestic law: under the Supremacy Clause in Article VI, Clause 2 of the US Constitution, the UN Charter constitutes the “Supreme Law of the Land” of the United States.

Equally illegal is the ongoing coercive naval campaign labelled “Operation Southern Spear.” Initiated in December 2025 and continuing today, this blockade-like operation has resulted in the seizure of tankers in the Caribbean, violating the freedom of navigation and the most fundamental tenet of the international economic order, namely the permanent sovereignty of peoples over their own natural resources.

International law does not permit states to simply “take” the resources of another nation as a tool of foreign policy; such actions are illegal, illegitimate, and set a devastating standard for the theft of national assets globally. The seizure and sale of Venezuela’s oil and mineral wealth taken by force in an armed assault or extorted under the threat of military force constitutes the war crime of pillage, no better than what Russia is committing with Ukrainian agricultural wealth.

Repeated breaches of peremptory norms of international law by powerful states do not rewrite the rules of international order; they expose the violators as recidivists who need to be held to account even more decisively.

These violations are all the more alarming in light of repeated public statements by President Trump regarding intentions to intervene in other nations, including Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, and Greenland. The international community must stand firm: the twin prohibition on the threat and the use of force is a peremptory norm of international law that cannot be derogated from.

NPWJ is also unequivocal in its condemnation of the grave and well-documented human rights violations committed under President Nicolás Maduro’s rule since 2013 and under his predecessor President Hugo Chávez since 2002. We stand with the victims and survivors of these crimes as they demand redress, justice and accountability.

NPWJ joins the call by Venezuelan human rights defenders and activists, who have been tirelessly monitoring and documenting atrocities under extreme conditions, for the International Criminal Court to dedicate more resources and more focus to their ongoing investigation into the Situation in Venezuela, which has been before the Court since 2018.

The forcible removal of a sitting head of state by a foreign power to be tried in their own local courts on unrelated charges is not a substitute for justice; it merely replaces the rule of law with the law of force.