Trump’s arrest of Maduro raises thorny legal questions in the U.S. and abroad

A handcuffed and jumpsuit-clad Nicolas Maduro stepped off a military helicopter in New York City on Monday morning, flanked by armed federal agents.

The Venezuelan president spent the night in a notorious federal prison in Brooklyn before authorities transported him to a Manhattan courthouse to face criminal charges.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro was brought to the United States “to face justice.”

But international law experts question the legality of the Trump administration’s actions and believe the United States may have violated international regulations on the use of force. Domestically, however, U.S. actions fall into a legal gray area that could still lead to Maduro’s trial, regardless of the circumstances that led to his trial.

The United States maintains that its actions are legal and reasonable. The Trump administration has accused Maduro of committing “narco-terrorism” and allowing “thousands of tons” of cocaine to be shipped to the United States.

“All involved acted professionally, decisively, and in strict compliance with U.S. law and established protocols,” Bondi said in a statement.

Maduro has long denied U.S. accusations that he oversaw illegal drug operations and entered a not guilty plea in a New York court on Monday.

Although the charges mainly focus on drugs, the U.S. indictment of Maduro follows years of international criticism of his leadership of Venezuela.

In 2020, United Nations investigators said Maduro’s government had committed “serious violations” amounting to crimes against humanity, implicating the president and other senior officials. The United States and some of its allies have also accused Maduro of rigging the election and do not recognize him as the legitimate president.

Maduro’s alleged links to drug cartels are at the center of the legal case, but the U.S.’s approach to bringing him before a U.S. judge to answer those charges is also being closely watched.

Luke Moffitt, a professor at the Law School at Queen’s University Belfast, said launching a military operation in Venezuela and driving Maduro out of the country under cover of darkness was “completely illegal under international law”.

Professor Moffitt and other experts pointed to a series of issues raised by the US action.

The United Nations Charter prohibits member states from threatening or using force against other countries. Professor Moffitt said it allowed for “self-defence in the event of an armed attack” but the threat must be imminent. Another exception is the U.N. Security Council’s approval of the action, which the U.S. did not receive before taking action in Venezuela.

Experts say international law will view the drug-trafficking crimes that the U.S. accuses Maduro of committing as law enforcement matters, rather than violent attacks that could justify military action by one country against another.

In public statements, the Trump administration described the operation as “fundamentally a law enforcement function” and not an act of war or military action, in the words of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Maduro has been under indictment in the United States since 2020 on drug trafficking charges; the Justice Department has now issued a superseding or amended indictment against the Venezuelan leader. The Trump administration has essentially said it is enforcing the bill now.

“The purpose of this mission is to support ongoing criminal prosecutions related to large-scale drug trafficking and related crimes that fuel violence, destabilize the region, and directly contribute to the drug crisis that has claimed American lives,” Bondi said in a statement.

But since the operation, several legal experts have said the United States violated international law by taking Maduro out of Venezuela on its own.

“A country cannot go into another country and arrest someone,” said Milena Sterio, an expert on international criminal law at Cleveland State University School of Law. “If the United States wants to arrest someone in another country, the right thing to do is to extradite.”

Even if a person faces prosecution in the United States, “the United States does not have the authority to execute arrest warrants everywhere on the territory of other sovereign nations,” she said.

Maduro’s lawyers told a Manhattan court on Monday they would challenge the legality of the U.S. operation that brought him from Caracas to New York.

There is also a long-running legal debate over whether the president must abide by the United Nations Charter. The U.S. Constitution considers treaties signed by the country to be the “supreme law of the land.”

But there is a clear historical example of a presidential administration that did not believe it had to abide by the Charter.

In 1989, the Bush administration deposed Panamanian military leader Manuel Noriega and brought him to the United States to face drug trafficking charges.

An internal Justice Department memo at the time said the president had the legal authority to order the FBI to arrest individuals who violated U.S. law “even if those actions violated customary international law” — including the United Nations Charter.

The memo’s author, William Barr, became U.S. attorney general during Trump’s first term and filed an initial indictment against Maduro in 2020.

However, the memo’s reasoning was subsequently criticized by legal scholars. U.S. courts have yet to explicitly intervene in the matter.

In the United States, the question of whether this action violated domestic law is complex.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, but the president is responsible for the armed forces.

A Nixon-era law called the War Powers Resolution limits the president’s ability to use military force. It requires the president to consult Congress before sending U.S. troops overseas “whenever possible” and to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying troops.

Rubio said Saturday that the Trump administration did not warn Congress before taking action in Venezuela “because it jeopardized the mission.”

However, several presidents have tested the limits of their authority to order military action without congressional approval, and Trump has for months been conducting military strikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean despite criticism from both parties.

U.S. federal courts now have jurisdiction over Maduro, regardless of how he arrived.

Maduro is likely to argue that the United States violated international law by forcibly taking him to New York. But Professor Sterio said substantial legal precedent suggested the trial against Maduro would go ahead.

“Our courts have long recognized that for defendants, even if they were kidnapped or forcibly brought to the United States, that is not grounds for dismissal,” she said.