On January 3rd, 2026, explosions rocked the Venezuelan capitals of Caracas, as U.S. forces raided the home of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. They were captured, transferred to the USS Iwo Jima, and then transported to New York. “Operation Absolute Resolve” took roughly two hours and twenty minutes. According to Venezuela’s Interior Minister, a hundred people were killed as a direct result of the the operation. None of them American (Reuters 2026).1
The attack was immediately met with international condemnations coming from governments around the world. The operation has been lambasted as a reckless escalation which violated Latin American sovereignty, breached international law, and sets, as Brazilian president Lula da Silva put it, “yet another extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community” (as quoted in Evans 2026).2
The outrage only increased as Trump announced the United States would “run” Venezuela until elections could be held, not providing any further details as to exactly what this would mean or entail. He also very openly discussed further U.S. involvement with Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world. Declaring that the United States would be given 30 to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil by Venezuela, the income from which he would control to “benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” (McGraw, Morenne, and Linskey 2026).3
He also stated that former VP and current Venezuelan president Delcy Rodríguez would need to comply with his plans or else she would “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” who now resides in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn (Scherer 2026).5
The whole affair left many decrying the violations of both international and U.S. law. The world once again decried the vital threat to the “rules-based order” that actions such as this one posed. The “rules-based order” of course being one that restricts the world’s governments on the basis of international law. It is this very order that many commentators have bemoaned as now being effectively “dead,” having witnessed over the course of the past few years both Israel’s unrestrained genocide in Gaza and the United States’ illegal kidnapping of Maduro.
Though of course those with a historical bent might point out the vital flaw in this claim. Not because such cases were in any way acceptable under international law, but because for the rules-based order to have “died,” it must at one point have been alive.
Exactly 36 years prior to Maduro’s capture in Operation Absolute Resolve, Panamanian dictator and former U.S. ally Manuel Noriega was captured by U.S. forces on January 3rd, 1990, a year after they invaded the Central American country in 1989 under Operation Just Cause. Noriega was also accused of drug trafficking, and was convicted as such in a Miami courthouse in 1992. He was extradited to France in 2010, then to Panama in 2011 where he would die in May 2017.
At the time, the U.S. invasion of Panama and capture of Noriega was also condemned internationally as a violation of international law. The Organization of American States (a regional organization comprising countries across South America, North America, and the Caribbean) denounced the invasion as having disrespected state sovereignty and causing the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of Panamanian civilians (Council on Hemispheric Affairs 2008).6
But then-U.S. president George H.W. Bush was benefited by a crafty piece of legal justification signed by Assistant Attorney General William Barr (later AG during Trump’s first term). The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) produced a memo, now commonly referred to as the “Override Opinion,” which states that the president does not need to heed international law when directing the FBI to investigate and arrest criminals abroad. It also states that “as a matter of domestic law, the Executive has the power to authorize actions inconsistent with Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter” (U.S. Department of Justice 1989).7
The Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter it is referring to states that “all Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations” (UN Charter, art. 2(4)).8
With this opinion, POTUS could now affectively dismiss one of the “principal legal limits” preventing him from engaging in a unilateral strike against another sovereign state (Finucane 2020).9
The Override Opinion has been argued against and criticized repeatedly by experts ever since it became public knowledge. One of the many contentions is that since the U.N. Charter is a multilateral treaty that has been ratified by the Senate, it operates as a domestic law which the president must enforce (Lowell 2026).10
Regardless, it was used by Bush in 1989 and has been referenced to justify actions by the Executive that contradict international law. Most recently, in a memorandum produced by the OLC’s top lawyer T. Elliot Gaiser. Produced last month at the behest of the Trump administration and recently released to the public, the memo argues, rather bizarrely, that the OLC has made no determination as to whether or not Operation Absolute Resolve is in violation of any international law. In regards to this question, Gaiser states that “it is unnecessary to address the issue,” as long as the president possesses the authority to conduct such an operation under domestic law (which, as earlier demonstrated, he does not).
As an aside, the memo also openly acknowledges that in conducting the operation, the United States has initiated an armed conflict under international law (U.S. Department of Justice 2025).11
Thus, one can see how, far from killing international law in Venezuela, the United States, and much of the Global North, had never given it life in the first place. Far from acting as a deterrent to international abuses of power, international law and the “rules-based order” we have come to mourn have only functioned to enable the United States to attack whoever refuses to bend the knee to American interests. All the while, leaving the U.S. free from consequence, outside of global public disdain and some strongly-worded condemnations.
We saw it in clear effect in Iraq when, under the guise of reestablishing regional stability, combatting terrorism, and securing alleged WMDs, George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003. Bush argued that Saddam Hussein had violated U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, which required Iraq to readmit inspectors for WMDs and to comply with all previous resolutions. Despite apparent Iraqi cooperation, Bush and British PM Tony Blair claimed that Iraq was hindering UN inspectors and was still harboring WMDs.
And so, through the use of “international law,” Iraq was faced with a destructive multinational invasion which took hundreds of thousands of lives and from which the country remains in recovery. The “rules-based order” did not merely fail to prevent the invasion of Iraq, it was actively used to enable it. By way of Bush and Blair, the invasion, however destructive, duplicitous, and avoidable, was legal.
Recently, Trump has announced the start of phase two of his 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza. A plan which he insists is working and in effect despite near-daily violations of the ceasefire on the part of the Israeli government (Haddad and Mansour 2026)13, and the plan being lambasted by several Palestinian groups as lacking proper Palestinian input (Gjevori 2025).14
Prior to its acceptance, the ridiculousness and inherent oppression of Trump’s proposed plan was known and labelled as such by journalists and activists the world over, and yet was officially, legally, adopted by the U.N. Security Council on November 17, 2025 with 13 yes votes and 2 abstentions.
And today, the same governments which conduct and fund an ongoing genocide in Gaza, express their consideration for military intervention to “secure the safety” of the Iranian people.
To say that there has ever been such a thing as true “international law” would be to ignore history. For the “law” must apply to all regardless of standing, wealth, or nationality. Nor has there ever been a “rules-based order,” for the “rules” in question are used only selectively, and the “order” has been non-existent for those whom have been subjected to the consequences of these “rules.”
These things, “international law” and the “rules-based order,” has only ever served as rhetoric to be used in political language and only actually applies to the Global South, whoever amongst them that does not comply with the will of the United States hegemon.
These things did not “die” in Panama. They did not “die” in Iraq. They did not “die” in Gaza. They did not “die” in Venezuela. They were never there. They had never been born, and they have not yet lived.
Reuters. 2026. “Venezuela’s interior minister says 100 people died in U.S. attack.” Reuters, January 8. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuelas-interior-minister-says-100-people-died-us-attack-2026-01-08/
Evans, Gareth. 2026. “Spies, drones and blowtorches: How the US captured Maduro.” BBC, January 4. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdred61epg4o
McGraw, Meredith, Benoît Morenne, and Annie Linskey. 2026. “U.S. to Control Venezuelan Oil Sales Indefinitely.” The Wall Street Journal, January 7. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/venezuela-to-give-u-s-up-to-50-million-barrels-of-oil-trump-says-c964eb48
Reuters. 2026. “Photos show aftermath of US strikes on Venezuela.” Reuters, January 4. https://www.reuters.com/pictures/photos-show-aftermath-us-strikes-venezuela-2026-01-04/
Scherer, Michael. 2026. “Trump Threatens Venezuela’s New Leader With a Fate Worse Than Maduro’s.” The Atlantic, January 4. https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/01/trump-venezuela-maduro-delcy-rodriguez/685497/
Council on Hemispheric Affairs. 2008. “Operation Just Cause: A Historical Analysis.” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, July 15. https://coha.org/operation-just-cause-a-historical-analysis/
United States Department of Justice. 1989. Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation To Override International Law In Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/file/151131/dl?inline=
United Nations. 1945. United Nations Charter (full text). New York: United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text
Finucane, Brian. 2020. “Revisiting the Office of Legal Counsel’s Override Opinion.” Just Security, November 17. https://www.justsecurity.org/73412/revisiting-the-office-of-legal-counsels-override-opinion/
Lowell, Hugo. 2026. “DoJ deemed it ‘unnecessary’ to conclude whether seizing Maduro violated international law, memo reveals.” The Guardian, January 14. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/maduro-international-law-memo
United States Department of Justice. 2025. MEMORANDUM FOR LEGAL ADVISOR, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1423306/dl?inline
Al Jazeera. 2023. “Photos: Iconic images from the Iraq War.” Al Jazeera, March 2023. https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/3/20/photos-9
Haddad, Mohammed, and Mohammad Mansour. 2026. “US declares phase two of Gaza ceasefire, but what did phase one deliver?” Al Jazeera, January 16. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/16/us-declares-phase-two-of-gaza-ceasefire-but-what-did-phase-one-deliver
Gjevori, Elis. 2025. “Palestinian coalition rejects US ‘colonial’ plan for Gaza.” Middle East Eye, November 16. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-coalition-rejects-new-colonialism-proposal-us