European leaders emerged divided and torn as they tried to welcome the ejection of Venezuela’s authoritarian president, but still uphold the principles of international law that did not appear to allow Donald Trump to seize Nicolás Maduro, let alone declare that the US will run Venezuela and control its oil industry.
Europe tried to focus on the principle of a democratic transition, pointing out that the continent had not recognised Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela since what were widely regarded as fraudulent elections in June 2024.
But Trump’s rejection of the Nobel prize-winning Venezuelan opposition figurehead, María Corina Machado, was awkward. Trump said she did not have support or respect in Venezuela, but European leaders have embraced her as leading an opposition that deserves power.
International lawyers say the US rejection of Maduro’s legitimacy opens a path for Washington to argue that he does not enjoy sovereign immunity as a head of state in the US domestic courts, in the same way that George Bush was allowed to try Manuel Noriega in the US after his capture in 1989.
US officials have claimed the operation against Venezuela was justified on the grounds of self-defence, arguing that the government was involved in drug-trafficking.
The Yale professor of international law Oona Hathaway, however, said she saw no plausible justification under the UN charter for the US use of force. “If drug trafficking is a reasonable justification for attacking another country then a whole range of possible arguments can be made that basically mean that self-defence is no longer a real exception. It’s the new rule.”
“The idea that because drugs are coming from a country justifies an invasion and a change of administration in that country gets rid of any kind of limits on the use of force,” she said. The US action was a breach of international law unlike any before, she said.
In a sign of Europe’s discomfort, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister of Greece, one of the 10 non-permanent countries on the UN security council, tried to close down discussion of Trump’s methods. “Nicolás Maduro presided over a brutal and repressive dictatorship that brought about unimaginable suffering on the Venezuelan people. The end of his regime offers new hope for the country,” he wrote on social media, adding that “this is not the time to comment on the legality of the recent actions”.
The closer ideological allies of Trump in Europe, such as the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, deemed the US operation legitimate, describing it as a “defensive intervention”.
Criticism from others was possibly muffled for fear of attracting Trump’s displeasure when his support for Ukraine is still considered vital. The EU foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “The EU has repeatedly stated that Maduro lacks legitimacy, and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN charter must be respected. We call for restraint.”
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, also focused on what might happen next. “We stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people and support a peaceful and democratic transition. Any solution must respect international law and the charter of the United Nations,” she said.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, also dived for cover. “The legal assessment of the US intervention is complex and requires careful consideration,” he said.
France too was circumspect. Without mentioning the US military operation, Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that the end of the “Maduro dictatorship” was something the Venezuelan people could “only rejoice in”, and called for a “peaceful and democratic transition” led by Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate for the 2024 presidential election. In an act of solidarity he also spoke to Machado.
The clearest critic was the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, who said the operation to capture Maduro “violates the principle of non-use of force that underpins international law”.
“France reiterates that no lasting political solution can be imposed from the outside and that sovereign peoples alone decide their future,” he said.
“The repeated violations of this principle by nations entrusted with the primary responsibility as permanent members of the United Nations security council will have heavy consequences for world security, sparing no one.”
Keir Starmer shed no tears over Maduro’s departure and mentioned the importance of international law, but the UK prime minister did not discuss how it might apply in this instance.
Those who advocate for international law may now find themselves appealing to a vanishing world order in which Venezuela is the latest burial in an already crowded graveyard.
Trump’s actions cement a new system in which the naked self-interest of two or three “great powers” dominates. In this world order, Washington and Beijing will decide on the basis that might is right.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, explicitly threatened on Saturday that Cuba was next. “Cuba is a disaster, run by incompetent and senile men,” he said. “If I were them, I would be a little worried.”
The advocates of multilateralism and international courts may also need to reflect on their own failures.
Nizar El Fakih , a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said: “Multilateralism did not deliver a single effective negotiation process leading to an orderly, peaceful and negotiated transition, despite years of appeals by millions of Venezuelans who voted, protested and exhausted every available civic mechanism at enormous personal cost.
“The international criminal court, with an investigation open since 2021, has yet to issue a single indictment, despite extensive documentation of crimes against humanity by the United Nations fact-finding mission on Venezuela, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and hundreds of victims”.
