Venezuela Undermines My Confidence in the International Community, Not in International Law

Late in the afternoon of Saturday, 3 January 2026, I turned on the car radio to find out whether the final Ashes test match had begun that day. It hadn’t. Instead, explosions were reported in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. The United States was suspected of bombing parts of the city. That suspicion was later confirmed, and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had been abducted to the United States.¹

With a sinking feeling, my immediate reaction was, ‘Here we go again — another war with dubious motives.’ Has the populist ghoul been unmasked to reveal he was old Mr Neoconservatism all along? Has the war on drugs, like the search for weapons of mass destruction, become a thinly-veiled pretext to grab the oil of another uncooperative regime?

Initially, I felt that I had no legal insight to offer. Nobody needs me to say that the American attack on Venezuela is an illegal use of force under international law.² Far more authoritative voices than I have beaten me to the obvious.³ As Milanovic puts it: ‘The illegality of the US military operation against Venezuela is so obvious, so manifest, and so egregious, that the issue is simply not open to reasonable disagreement.’⁴

Yet, as this story developed, familiar criticisms of international law recurred. Suggestions that international law has failed, proving that it is irrelevant and unenforceable, and therefore not even law. Sneering derisions and dismissals that suggest anyone who clings to any faith in international law is a fool.

Such criticism has been discussed and answered elsewhere. I will simply say for now that international law must, at some level, be taken seriously. As Brownlie says,

the actual use of rules described as rules of international law by governments, is not to be questioned. All normal governments employ experts to provide … advice on matters of international law and constantly define their relations with other States in terms of international law. Governments and their officials routinely use rules which they have for a very long time called ‘the law of nations’ or ‘international law’.⁵

Individual violations of international law do not make it unimportant as a whole. Henkin famously quipped that ‘almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all of the time.’⁶ Actions like the American intervention in Venezuela are the exception rather than rule.

All laws are inevitably broken. Israeli colonisation of Palestine is unlawful,⁷ Russian annexation of Ukraine is unlawful,⁸ and, now, American interference in Venezuela is unlawful. As Brownlie observes, ‘At any time international society contains a certain number of dangerous eccentrics … The existence of these depressing memorials of the abnormal proves no more about the general role of law and the habit of legality than the existence within national communities of criminal individuals and groups’.⁹ Lawbreaking is not unique to, nor is it the fault of, international law.

But if international law is important, and the United States is one of those ‘dangerous eccentrics’ that has violated international law, what happens next?

Meetings. Lots of meetings. Meetings at which representatives of other countries will remind the United States of its international obligations, and the United States will reaffirm that the current administration has no intention of being a constructive, law-abiding member of the international community, no matter how much power, privilege and influence it has on the global plane.¹⁰ In short: the United States will probably get away with it.

This kind of response seems to fuel most scepticism about international law. How can it even be law when countries can break it without consequence?

Contrary to some claims, international law is enforceable,¹¹ but any system of laws requires institutional willingness to uphold the rules. It can be disheartening when prosecutors decline to pursue criminal charges. It is similarly discouraging when the international community refuses to collectively enforce the norms of international law. But if the international community is a poor prosecutor, it is not the fault of the law.

The international community’s failure in relation to Venezuela predates US intervention. Assessments of Maduro’s regime were unflattering, echoing the brutality of Pinochet in Chile. Multilateral humanitarian intervention was probably warranted. Maduro could have been toppled and prosecuted in his own country or by the international community for the harm he inflicted on Venezuela. For example, the Security Council could have referred the matter to the International Criminal Court and taken appropriate action to enforce an arrest warrant.¹²

Instead, the international community acquiesced. Unilateral American intervention may bring some temporary reprieve for Venezuelans. However, it seems to primarily further the economic interests of the United States. Economic exploitation is not the way to achieve long-term political stability and socioeconomic development. Refusal to collectively address a humanitarian crisis left the door open for economically- and ideologically-motivated unilateral action.

The actions of ‘dangerous eccentrics’ undermine the international legal order’s commitments to peace and security. This is especially problematic given Russia and the United States are both permanent members of the Security Council. At the same time, the international community, often obstructed by Russian and American vetoes, has not intervened when intervention is clearly justified.

Will the international legal order collapse in the face of such challenges? Perhaps. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The early 20th century saw the collapse of the prewar legal order (1815–1914), the rise and fall of the interwar legal order (1918–39), and the emergence of the current, postwar legal order (1945–). After both World Wars, international law was central to building the new world orders. At the time, practitioners and scholars of international law such as Robert Redslob had to grapple with understanding and explaining the associated shifts.

If we are seeing the collapse of the current order, no doubt my colleagues and I will be required to understand and explain whatever replaces it. However, I am confident that any future world orders will remain underpinned by international law.