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We should not be surprised to see the current US president, after previously supported Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, now seems willing to violate legal norms with the administration's bellicose approach regarding Venezuela alongside lethal attacks against suspected drug-running vessels. Demonstrating those fears voiced by demonstrators throughout America, Trump acts as if he were immune from the law. One way to restrain such illegal conduct is to reveal the harmful consequences to his followers.

Armed Deployments along with Provocative Actions

Despite the White House's commitment against initiating open-ended wars, Trump has sent a warship to Caribbean waters while has been sending military aircraft close to the Venezuelan coast. Although the Trump administration rejects that its objective is regime change, some authorities privately concede this seems is the aim. Ousting the nation's authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has for years been an objective for the US Secretary of State, the chief foreign affairs officer.

Whether Trump's provocations represent empty rhetoric and preparation to military action, these actions remain unlawful. Nor, does such aggressive posturing create justification to excuse Trump's illegal killings – which some label extrajudicial killing – targeting suspected drug traffickers from Venezuela.

International Law Breaches

The United Nations Charter, a document that binds every country, it contains a ban against threatening or using military force against other nations unless authorized by the UN's top body or used in “self-defense” in response to “an armed attack”. Given the veto power on the council, it is impossible for it would authorize Trump to attack Venezuela. Additionally, could Trump argue such an action as “self-defense” because Venezuela has not launched military strikes against the United States.

Responsibility to Protect Doctrine

But then there is the concept of humanitarian intervention, the principle stating even without Security Council approval, military force could be employed to halt widespread crimes? I previously supported that approach, often called R2P. Human Rights Watch, which I long led, on several occasions advocated for humanitarian intervention in the past. However, the misuse of the doctrine as a pretext for overthrowing governments during the Iraq war and the Libyan conflict has in practice made the doctrine irrelevant. Those nations ended up left in chaos, an outcome often more severe compared to authoritarian rule. Few reference R2P anymore.

More importantly, even its peak popularity, such action could only be justified as a last resort to prevent current or imminent mass killing or comparable systematic murder. The reason is that only widespread killing warrants the dangers inherent in every armed engagement, even when assertedly humanitarian motives.

Maduro's Actions

Maduro is certainly a terrible leader. He has suppressed opposition against his autocratic rule, stolen presidential votes, reduced to poverty a resource-rich country through his mismanagement, and forced nearly eight million citizens – more than twenty percent of Venezuelans – to leave their homeland. But, military action for humanitarian purposes cannot be legitimized only to overthrow a despot, absent mass slaughter.

Contrasting Policies International Conflicts

Trump's fixation with Venezuela strikingly contrasts from his comparative indifference regarding far more deadly armed conflicts in Darfur, Sudan and in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. There, the US has done nothing to prevent the United Arab Emirates, from arming the paramilitary RSF as they starve and bomb innocent people. In eastern Congo, the administration brokered a ceasefire deal, since largely been violated, that approved Rwanda's aggressive invasion, via Rwandan forces and rebel proxy forces known as the M23, while enabling them to exploit the region's natural resources.

Peace Prize Laureate and International Law

The unlawful nature of the US actions against Venezuela remains unchanged despite the fact that María Corina Machado, the Peace Prize winner, has invited Trump to intervene. Like the Burmese prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and who defended the country's armed forces from genocide charges targeting Rohingya Muslims in her quest to become president, Machado illustrates the Nobel committee's tendency to mix up an ambition to seize control from authoritarian regimes and dedication to legal principles.

In short, were Trump to invade Venezuela, it would be indefensible military aggression, much as Russia's president committed by invading Ukraine. The desire to rid the Venezuelan people from their leader's oppressive and corrupt governance cannot legitimize armed intervention against Venezuela.

Legal Arguments for Drug Boat Attacks

Additionally, does the administration's bellicose conduct save the lawfulness of his lethal attacks on suspected narcotics-smuggling boats. The Trump administration has declined to release the internal legal memo which claims to authorize these strikes, however officials have referenced rationales which are similar to those used for the warnings of invading Venezuela.

Under global legal standards, police actions are required to refrain from deadly violence except as a last resort to address an immediate danger of lethal harm and grave physical harm. In the past, the majority of suspected drug-running boats have been stopped and their occupants prosecuted. But the president wants us to believe that individuals in the boats can now be executed without trial because they are participants in a war with the US so can be killed as any combatant in a war.

However, there is no armed conflict involving the drug cartels. These groups are running illegal enterprises, a trade often advanced through brutality, admittedly, but that violence is not directed against the United States. There is nothing approaching the level of military engagement with America required for laws of armed conflict to be applicable.

If the US were to invade Venezuela, the fighting between the nations would certainly represent