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We should not be astonished that the current US president, after earlier supported Israeli actions in Gaza, now appears prepared to disregard legal norms through his threatening approach toward Venezuela alongside deadly attacks against suspected drug-running vessels. Demonstrating those concerns voiced by demonstrators throughout the United States, the president acts as if he is immune from legal accountability. One method to restrain this kind of illegal conduct would be to reveal its harmful consequences for his followers.

Armed Deployments along with Aggressive Measures

In spite of the White House's pledge to avoid starting protracted wars, Trump has sent an aircraft carrier to the Caribbean Sea while is sending armed helicopters close to Venezuela's shoreline. Although US officials rejects that their objective is ousting the government, some officials confidentially admit this seems is their aim. Removing the nation's autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, has long been a priority for the US Secretary of State, the chief foreign affairs officer.

Whether the president's threats represent empty words or preparation for military action, these actions remain illegal. Nor, does such aggressive posturing create legal grounds for Trump's unlawful attacks – described by critics as murder – targeting suspected narcotics smugglers from Venezuela.

International Charter Breaches

According to the UN Charter, which applies to all nations, it contains a prohibition on “the threat or use of force” against another state unless authorized by the UN's top body and used in “self-defense” against military aggression. Given the veto on the council, there is impossible for it to authorize Trump to attack Venezuela. Additionally, could Trump interpret such an action to be “self-defense” since Venezuela has not launched military strikes on the United States.

Humanitarian Intervention Principle

But then there is the idea of humanitarian intervention, the notion stating without requiring Security Council authorization, armed intervention might be used to halt mass atrocities? I once supported this doctrine, often called the Responsibility to Protect. The rights organization, which the author formerly served, on several occasions advocated for humanitarian intervention in the past. However, the abuse of this principle as a pretext for overthrowing governments in Iraq and Libya has in practice rendered R2P a dead letter. Both countries were in disarray, a situation often more severe compared to authoritarian rule. Few reference R2P today.

Crucially, even its peak popularity, humanitarian intervention could only be defended as a last resort to stop ongoing or imminent mass killing or similar atrocities. This is because just large-scale killing can justify the dangers involved in every armed engagement, even when supposedly humanitarian motives.

The Venezuelan Leader's Actions

The Venezuelan president is certainly a terrible ruler. His government has suppressed dissent against his autocratic rule, stolen an election, reduced to poverty a resource-rich country with their incompetence, and forced almost eight million people – over twenty percent of Venezuelans – to flee their homeland. However, humanitarian intervention can never be justified only for removing a dictator, absent mass slaughter.

Contrasting Approaches to Global Conflicts

Trump's fixation with Venezuela strikingly contrasts from his relative inaction regarding much more lethal armed conflicts in Sudan's Darfur region as well as in eastern the DRC. There, Trump has done nothing to stop the United Arab Emirates, from arming the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces while they deprive and attack civilians. In eastern Congo, the administration brokered a truce agreement, since largely been ignored, that approved Rwandan aggressive incursion, via Rwandan forces and allied militias known as the M23, and enabling Rwanda to profit from the region's natural resources.

Peace Prize Laureate versus Global Law

The unlawful nature of Trump's threats against Venezuela remains unchanged despite the fact that María Corina Machado, the Peace Prize laureate, has virtually encouraged Trump to invade. Similar to the Burmese prize winner Suu Kyi, who defended the country's armed forces against atrocity accusations targeting the Rohingya in her attempt to become president, the opposition figure illustrates the prize committee's tendency to confuse a desire to wrest power from authoritarian regimes with dedication to legal principles.

To summarize, were Trump were to attack Venezuela, that would constitute indefensible military aggression, similar to Russia's president did by invading Ukraine. The wish to free Venezuelans from their leader's brutal, corrupt rule cannot legitimize armed intervention against Venezuela.

Juridical Rationales Regarding Narcotics Vessel Attacks

Nor, does Trump's bellicose behavior save the legality of his lethal attacks on suspected drug-running boats. The Trump administration has refused to release a confidential legal opinion which claims to authorize these attacks, but authorities have cited arguments which are comparable to those applied to the threats to invade Venezuela.

Under global legal standards, police actions must avoid deadly violence except as a last resort to address an immediate danger of death and grave physical harm. In the past, the majority of alleged narcotics vessels were stopped with their crews put on trial. Yet the president would have the public to think that the people on these vessels can now be executed without trial on the grounds that they have become in an “armed conflict” against the United States so can be killed like any combatant in a war.

But, exists no armed conflict involving narcotics organizations. They are running illegal enterprises, a trade often furthered through brutality, to be sure, but such force is not aimed against US interests. There is no situation reaching the threshold of military engagement against the United States required to apply laws of armed conflict to take effect.

If the US decided to attack Venezuela, the hostilities between two countries would certainly represent