Sinking the Rule of Law: The Legality of America's Venezuela Strikes

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jordan Jennings

Readers' Note: This article does not examine the U.S. military operation on January 3rd, 2026, in which American forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. While the Trump administration has employed similar rhetoric to justify both operations, the Maduro capture uniquely involves a federal indictment filed against Maduro in March 2020. This prosecutorial basis is absent from the maritime strikes analysed here, placing the two operations on different legal terrain.

Promise number 10: "The drug cartels are waging a war on America - and it's now time for America to wage war on the cartels." Through campaign promises such as these, many reasonably predicted that U.S. President Donald Trump's second term would see an escalation in state resources to curb drug trafficking aggressively. Just hours after his inauguration, President Trump moved to deliver on this promise: via executive order, the U.S. Department of State designated eight cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). What followed raised significant legal concerns. On 2nd September, 2025, the U.S. Navy sank a vessel alleged to be carrying drugs near Venezuela. Over the following months, under what would be designated Operation Southern Spear (OSS), President Trump directed the Department of Defense (DoD) to carry out more than a dozen lethal strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels in the region.

Building off the State Department's fresh designation of cartel groups as terrorists, the White House justified these strikes as part of its new "maritime war on drugs" – a framing that warranted an unprecedented shift in drug interdiction responsibilities from law enforcement to the U.S. military. The scale of this operation has been enormous: warships, fighter jets, and unmanned aerial vehicles coalesced to form the largest naval strike group in Latin America in history. With at least 3 individuals killed, the campaign has drawn intense global scrutiny and accusations that it far exceeds the bounds of legitimate counter-narcotics policy. Yet, despite repeated White House and DoD assertions of legality, unverified claims about those killed, alleged human rights violations, and apparent efforts to circumvent judicial oversight raise a salient question: were these strikes legal? 

This article examines the Trump administration's conduct under international law, evaluates its compliance with domestic constitutional and statutory constraints, and considers the broader implications for institutional accountability and the current rules-based international order. Though differing in scope and structure, both legal frameworks lead to the same conclusion: these strikes lack lawful justification.

International Law: Self-Defence, Maritime Jurisdiction, and Humanitarian Violations

In the international sphere, the administration's legal justifications fail to withstand scrutiny. The UN Charter, which binds all member states, strictly prohibits the use of lethal force under Article 51 unless for self-defence against an armed attack. The White House has invoked this provision, arguing that the targeted vessels are engaged in “irregular warfare” against the United States. Since the cartel groups are designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), lethal military action falls within international law. However, as Professor Michael Becker of Trinity College Dublin observes, “[labelling] everyone a terrorist does not make them a lawful target…to side-step international law”. The reliance on FTO designations to transform otherwise non-imminent, non-state actors into targets justifying lethal force has long been criticised as a legally spurious mechanism. 

U.S. Code defines an FTO as a group that threatens “the national security (national [defence], foreign relations, or economic interests) of the United States”. This broad and ambiguous standard has allowed successive administrations to deploy FTO designations in ways that reflect foreign-policy priorities over empirically demonstrated threats to American security. Branding the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and People’s Mojahedin of Iran (MEK) as FTOs illustrates how the State Department has actively leveraged the FTO framework to advance geopolitical goals rather than labelling tangible security threats. More recently, the Trump Administration’s removal of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former jihadist terror group affiliated with al-Qaeda, from the FTO list to facilitate diplomatic negotiations in Syria underscores the legal inconsistency with which this code is applied. Consequently, the White House’s argument becomes circular: the government first shapes a designation to fit its political aims, then cites it as an objective legal justification for lethal force; the claim of lawfulness dissolves into mere assertion. In attempting to reframe drug smuggling, a serious crime nonetheless befitting state attention, as an existential threat warranting military action, the administration stretches the legal doctrine of Article 51 far beyond its accepted limits. 

Beyond the UN Charter, these strikes contravene the jurisdictional and normative framework established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). UNCLOS Article 220 Section 7 outlines how states, under certain circumstances, can search and detain ships suspected of drug smuggling that may lead to detention or trial: not executing suspects in open sea. Though the United States never formally ratified UNCLOS due to Reaganist concerns over sovereignty, it was one of the “major participants in its negotiation process”. The Department of Defense further notes that “it has been the policy of the United States to act in a manner consistent with its provisions”. UNCLOS’s framework aims to ensure that states exercise their authority at sea with magnanimous respect for human rights, transparency, and noncoercive enforcement. Aligning with these values, the Department of Defense in 2021 endorsed ratifying UNCLOS as it additionally “works against ‘jurisdictional creep’...establishes stable maritime zones…[and] codifies…transit passage and archipelagic sea lines passage rights”. Killing suspected smugglers in international waters without arrest, charge, or trial goes beyond UNCLOS-sanctioned policing. This places Operation Southern Spear’s lethal directive outside both the convention’s framework and maritime military legal norms the U.S. military has long claimed to uphold.

Nevertheless, even if the United States were correct in its claims that international laws of self-defence apply to the threat of narco-terrorist drug smuggling, the manner in which they have been carried out violates some of the most fundamental provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Established after the Second World War to create humanitarian limitations on the conduct of hostilities, Article 12 of the Geneva Convention(II) requires that individuals “who are at sea and who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances.” 

Additionally, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, preceding the Geneva Convention in defining the laws and customs of warfare, outlaw “no quarter given” policies, in which soldiers cannot execute persons who could otherwise be taken prisoner. However, following the U.S. Navy’s September 2nd strike on a cartel vessel, the Washington Post reported that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly ordered a follow-up strike on survivors of the initial strike. With “two survivors clinging to…[smouldering] wreck”, Hegseth’s “double-tap” directive oversaw a missile strike on individuals who no longer posed a threat. If reported correctly, this strike directly violates Article 12 of the Geneva Conventions and Hague Conventions: binding rules of international law to which the United States is a signatory. From initiating lethal strikes beyond the scope of international laws to violating human rights conventions, as UN human rights chief Volker Türk comments, the strikes have “no justification in international law…[and] amount to extrajudicial killing”. 

Domestic Law: The AUMF and War Powers Limits

While international law offers a clear basis for deeming these actions unlawful, the U.S. domestic legal system presents a more complex, interpretation-based framework that requires deeper analysis to reach the same conclusion. At the core of all decisions regarding the declaration or authorisation of military powers, Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants the U.S. Congress the power to determine when and how the nation engages in armed conflict as a key check on presidential authority. Within the context of the Trump Administration’s incitement of regional hostilities in the Caribbean Sea, the administration has received no formal Congressional support. 

To bypass this requirement, the White House Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has relied on a 2001 joint Congressional resolution: the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). Created specifically following the September 11 terrorist attack, the AUMF was passed to empower President George Bush’s ability to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those he …determines… aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001”. Following the expansive powers of the AUMF, President Bush and subsequent presidents Obama and Trump extended those powers to apply to “associated groups” and individuals for operations arguably unrelated in the Philippines, Yemen, Niger, and Syria. Building off the U.S. State Department’s recent addition of cartel groups as FTOs, White House OLC has broadly applied the AUMF to ‘counter terror’ in Venezuela without Congressional approval. The use of the AUMF in conflicts such as these has been widely criticised for its strained interpretations, secrecy from Congress, and for creating a legal loophole for “Forever Wars”. Though President Biden attempted to reform the AUMF, its continued acceptance by Congress and the Judiciary leaves its application largely dependent on who holds executive power. Thus, the administration’s reliance on a two-decade-old counterterrorism authorisation to justify its strikes against potential drug smugglers represents a legally dubious expansion of the AUMF’s original scope. 

Despite applying the AUMF’s broad powers to justify lethal maritime strikes, the Trump administration remains in violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Created to impose more tangible limits on executive power during the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution redefined the legal process for initiating conflict. Rather than relying on presidential good will for consultation, the Resolution established an explicit three-part framework: the President deploys troops and notifies Congress within 48 hours, forces may remain up to 60 days without approval, Congress must authorise continued engagement, or else troops must be withdrawn.

Although the administration satisfied the initial 48-hour notice, as of January 2026, it is now well beyond 60 days since the September 2 strikes with no congressional authorisation granted. This constitutes a clear violation of the War Powers Resolution 's statutory ceiling on unauthorised military engagement. Enforcing such violations falls to Congress: members can initiate investigations through their committee assignments, subpoena officials, and issue binding resolutions to compel Executive Branch compliance. Instead, in October and November 2025, the Republican controlled Senate voted twice to block resolutions that would have limited Trump from engaging in further hostilities in Venezuela without Congressional approval. 

Consequently, as Operation Southern Spear continues in apparent violation of the War Powers Resolution, partisan allegiance within a Republican-led House and Senate has rendered the Legislative Branch complicit in the Executive’s overreach and denigration of constitutional law.   

Who Was Killed? Evidence, Due Process, and Judicial Evasion

Looking beyond the legality of Trump initiating these strikes, another concern remains: were the individuals killed on these vessels terrorists? Presently, the Department of Defense has repeatedly stated that each target killed in a strike was a member of a designated narco-terrorist organisation. In press conferences, the Pentagon Press Secretary routinely cites “naval intelligence assessments” as sufficient evidence to suppress any criticism or concern about their identities. Contrary to these claims, relatives of individuals killed in these strikes have asserted that their family members had no connection to smuggling or cartel operations. One relative has filed a human rights lawsuit before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming the U.S. strikes killed an uninvolved Colombian fisherman by mistake. Such assertions regarding the Navy’s potentially less-than-robust mechanism to identify targets adds to the difficulty of trusting the official statements of the Department of Defense.

Fuelling further distrust are the previous allegations of the new U.S. Justice Department policies centred on indiscriminately destroying suspected drug vessels. At a leaked Justice Department conference in February 2025, former personal attorney to President Trump and then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove allegedly informed top drug prosecutors that the administration no longer sought to interdict and detain suspected drug vessels; instead, they intended to “just sink the boats”. By killing perceived smugglers without arrest, charge, or trial, the administration sidesteps critical constitutional protections such as the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, stating no one shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”. 

More recently, an investigative report by the New York Times on 10th December revealed the administration's ongoing determination to avoid judicial scrutiny posed by survivors of the Navy’s lethal strikes. Citing leaked calls between Defense and State Department lawyers in mid-to-late October 2025, Pentagon officials “made it clear they did not want any rescued survivors brought into the U.S. detention and legal system, even for short-term holds”. Instead, they lobbied to relocate survivors beyond America’s jurisdictional landscape to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT). This move, as argued by Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer, was made to avoid defence lawyers “fil[ing] habeas corpus lawsuits in U.S. federal court questioning whether there really is an armed conflict…between the United States and cartels”. Such lawsuits would force the administration to provide courts with explicit evidence showing “that the people on the targeted boats are smuggling drugs and are a threat to Americans”: evidence that has yet to be provided. Though President Trump, during a 3rd December press conference, stated he had “no problem” releasing the full video of the “double-tap” strike, he reversed course within days amid mounting political scrutiny from Democratic and Republican Congressmen. Instead, he told reporters on 8th December, “I never said that [I would release the full video], you did”. With new leaked reports emerging regularly, suspicions that the administration is unwilling to subject its lethal strike operations to public accountability are well-founded. 

Implications: Constitutional Erosion and Global Credibility

In sum, the administration’s conduct in Operation Southern Spear illustrates a serious deterioration in the institutional constraints that have historically governed the use of force. Internationally, the campaign violates the UN’s foundational limits on unilateral force, ignores established maritime jurisdiction under UNCLOS, and breaches human rights doctrines codified in the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Domestically, the initiation of military hostilities in Venezuela circumvents the constitutional protections limiting the Executive Branch, stretches the AUMF far beyond its original intent, and denies individuals fundamental due process rights guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment. Moreover, the government has provided no verifiable evidence that those killed were cartel combatants, utilising extrajudicial killings to avoid oversight and accountability. 

These legal failures carry several significant policy implications. As the U.S. normalises lethal strikes on alleged cartel members, extrajudicial killings will become more embedded in American jurisprudence. Future administrations can cite the permissibility of these strikes as precedent to erode constitutional due process protections, both abroad and domestically. Such conduct not only denigrates the Department of Justice’s core mandate to pursue justice through courts rather than force, but it also places top U.S. military officials in potential violation of statutory obligations under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the War Crimes Act of 1996.

Institutionally, Congress' failure to enforce its Article I powers and the War Powers Resolution demonstrates a troubling prioritisation of short-term partisan loyalties over constitutional adherence. By letting the president continue to stretch the AUMF and declining to enforce the War Powers Resolution's 60-day ceiling, Congress cedes its foundational responsibility to maintain checks and balances. This precedent will likely continue to escalate among future administrations regardless of Republican or Democratic composition.  

Globally, the erosion of the rules-based order that the U.S. helped construct represents a radical departure from decades of American foreign policy. From guiding the creation of the United Nations to shaping the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. took on the mantle of "global policeman," cultivating the spread of liberal democratisation, humanitarian rights, and respect for national sovereignty. As foreign policy has shifted from advocating to violating the international legal system, America's global credibility suffers. Already, some of the U.S.'s strongest allies, including Canada and the United Kingdom, have publicly distanced themselves from these operations and begun withholding regional intelligence out of fear of misuse. Moreover, the U.S.'s disregard for international law may embolden other states to engage in similar conduct.

As allegations of "double-tap" orders and "sink them all" policies continue to emerge without tangible vindication, the legacy of the United States as a beacon for human rights and equal justice under law is being weakened. The guardrails created by the constitutional framers have failed to prevent these abuses. Congress has chosen partisan loyalty over its constitutional duty. The U.S. courts have remained silent. Allied nations are quietly stepping back. The question has shifted beyond whether these strikes are legally justifiable. It is now whether anyone with the power to stop it will choose to try. 

Written by Nima Movahedi

Edited by Janaki Kapadia