International Law Don’t Apply If you Are Powerful Enough

At around two o’clock in the morning of the 3rd of January 2026, the rules of international order collapsed again. U.S. forces struck military targets across Venezuela in what Donald Trump later called a ‘successful large-scale strike’. 

By morning, Nicólas Maduro was no longer the president but a prisoner, flown to New York to stand trial for committing nacro-terrorism.

The operation was framed as law enforcement and national security. According to Trump, every intercepted drug boat saves thousands of American lives. Hence, the arrest.

But that is only Trump’s framing of the story. The truth is an uncomfortable reality: 

The United States bombed a sovereign country, seized its sitting president, did so without UN authorisation and without a claim of self-defense.

Under the UN Charter, states are obligated to resolve conflicts peacefully. Military force is permitted only in cases of self-defense or with approval from the UN Security Council.

Neither conditions apply here. The forced arrest of an acting head of state further violates the principles of sovereignty and political independence.

In other words: he broke the law. International law. Humanitarian law.

And yet-nothing happens.

The consequences that the United States are facing are so far disconnected from the scale of its actions. Any smaller/ less powerful country attempting something similar would be sanctioned within days. However, not the U.S.

The reason is simple and deeply structural. The United States is not any state in the international system. It is one of the system's most powerful gatekeepers. With veto power in the UN Security Council, economic power, military dominance and many other allies depending on the United States, accountability becomes largely symbolic. And now the motivation about his act becomes clear too. Venezuela holds one of the largest proven oil reserves, making the whole attack about resources, power and control.

The result is deeply frustrating. If a superpower can invade another country, remove its leader and claim their resources, then international law stops being law and becomes a suggestion. A guideline for the weak. An inconvenience for the strong.

What happened in Caracas was not just an attack on a government, but an attack on the idea that global justice applies equally. And this highlight once again: in today’s world, breaking international law is not the problem. Having no power is. And this automatically leads to a vicious circle: power enables violations, violations reinforces power, and the lack of consequences normalizes both.

The final message? We live in a world where justice becomes selective.

by Alica Fischer