Trump, Iran, Venezuela, and the Fragility of International Law

In recent months, the world has witnessed a series of events that raise serious questions about the future of international law. In early January 2026, the United States launched a military operation in Caracas, resulting in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by US special forces in Venezuelan territory without the consent of the local government or a mandate from the United Nations Security Council. This incident immediately sparked widespread debate regarding state sovereignty and the immunity of heads of state under international law.

However, before the controversy had fully subsided, the world was shocked by a far larger escalation. On Saturday, 28 February 2026, Israel launched a military strike on Iran, previously coordinated with the US. The attack killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at his residence complex in Tehran, as confirmed by Iran’s judiciary on 1 March 2026.

Since then, the conflict has not abated but has instead widened to encompass military bases in the Gulf region, strategic energy facilities, and global shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz. Even the Houthi group in Yemen has become involved, making this conflict increasingly resemble an open proxy war.

If these two events are analysed along a single line, they share a fundamental similarity: the loosening boundaries of military force in international politics, whether for capturing a head of state or crippling and even replacing a country’s regime. In this context, the Iran conflict and the capture of Maduro are not merely geopolitical issues but a serious alarm for the sustainability of the core principles of international law.

Will international law, as studied in university lecture halls, slowly lose its meaning? The international legal order built after World War II to prevent similar tragedies from recurring now appears increasingly questioned in its relevance and binding power.

Limits on the Use of Force in International Law

The UN Charter is the highest foundation of international law governing relations between states, with the aim of maintaining international peace and security. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter explicitly prohibits threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

This prohibition has only two limited exceptions. First, self-defence against an armed attack as provided in Article 51 of the UN Charter. Second, use of force authorised by the UN Security Council. Outside these two conditions, the use of military force is in principle illegitimate under international law.

Debate over the limits of force use has resurfaced in various recent international events. One such is the US military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

This incident cannot be separated from the dynamics of US foreign policy in recent years. Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, the “America First” doctrine is often understood as a foreign policy approach that emphasises US national interests and tends towards unilateralism in responding to security threats.

In this context, the direct use of state power is often seen as a legitimate instrument to protect strategic interests, even without going through collective mechanisms like a UN Security Council mandate.

On the other hand, this approach is often framed through various security doctrines, such as pre-emptive self-defence, which expands the interpretation of threats, and the war on terror approach, which emphasises prevention of cross-border security risks. In certain conditions, justification is also linked to the responsibility to protect (R2P) concept, although its application outside clear humanitarian crises remains contentious.

Similarly, this one-sided view emerges in the context of the military strike on Iran. The US and Israeli governments stated that the attack was a necessary action to counter strategic threats from Iran, particularly regarding its nuclear programme and regional security stability.

Both international events—the capture of Maduro and the strike on Iran—can be debated as violations and betrayals of the principles of international law enshrined in the UN Charter.

Based on customary international law as stated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case of Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), self-defence can only be justified if it meets three main criteria: the existence of an actual armed attack, actions that are truly necessary (necessity), and a proportional response (proportionality).

These three criteria can be said to be absent in both the Maduro capture and the Iran strike contexts, and even represent deviations from the limits on force use as regulated in the UN Charter (Kathrada, 2026). This is because there is no evidence of an imminent threat as required under the strict interpretation of self-defence norms in international law.

On a broader scale, this phenomenon reflects the erosion of the rules-based international order, where norms designed to limit the use of force are beginning to lose their binding power in practice. Furthermore, the application of international law tends to be selective (selective enforcement), especially when involving the interests of major powers.