By Martha L. Schmidt, LL.M., J.D.,
For the Joint Anti-Militarism Working Group of the National Lawyers Guild’s Military Law Task Force and International Committee
3 January 2026
Also see: MLTF Statement of Opposition to the US Invasion of Venezuela (Jan. 3, 2025)
US aggression since September 2025 focusing on Venezuela has to be seen as part of a larger scheme. It has become increasingly clear that Trump and the manipulator of his Western Hemispheric military and economic policy, Marco Rubio, intend to create chaos and terror in the Americas in defiance of well-established principles of international law. In order to complete their imperial plan for the region, they are taking on the country with the largest oil reserves in the world and a country which had the fastest growing GDP in the hemisphere last year (according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean). This aggression serves to remind the world of the US failure to address its role in global warming and the centrality of US militarism and war in accelerating human rights and environmental crises.
The US National Security Strategy released by the Executive in 2025 is a statement of intention to promote lawlessness. It declares that the US must be “preeminent in the Western hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity.” Do the people of the US believe this? Probably not.
The NSS 2025 plan is described as one of “enlist and expand.” The “enlist” part is described as controlling migration, stopping drug flows and “strengthening stability and security” on land and in ocean space. Four components are listed as express military goals: 1) refocusing the US military to the W. Hemisphere from other regions to address “urgent threats”; 2) increased use of the US Navy and Coast Guard (phrased as “a more suitable” presence) allegedly to stop migration, drugs and control transit routes; 3) use of lethal force (aka murder) in targeted deployments, with the alleged purpose of securing the US border and defeating cartels; and 4) establishing and expanding military access in “strategically important locations.” The “enlist” part of the plan seems predictive of more aggression using the US military. At the end of 2025, 115 people had been murdered in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific by the policy of the use of lethal force in targeted deployments.
The “expand” part of the plan is clearly meant to bar other states, especially China, from economic relations with the region (US aid, including weapons sales, to be contingent on “winding down adversarial outside influence”). All US officials are expected to apply pressure and incentives to those countries which are “partners” (in a very unequal partnership), and finance and technology will be used to “induce” regional states to reject assistance from countries outside the region who are competitors of the US. The “expand” part of the plan appears to threaten even more illegal Unilateral Economic Measures (UCMs) than exist currently. UCMs, imposed on Cuba for decades, ballooned into an economic blockade affecting third countries, banks, etc. UCMs were also imposed to a lesser degree on Venezuela and Nicaragua.
US aggression has been ramped up to a naval blockade of Venezuela, which, though partial, is an act of war under international law. Although Congress has the war-making power, the Trump administration has defied the constitutional order of a separation of powers, a cornerstone of a democratic form of government. So far this has been accomplished with impunity and avoidance of impeachment.
The administration’s violations of international law, public and private, treaty and customary law, are many. Under US constitutional law, treaties are the supreme law of the land, binding on all levels of government. Supremacy Clause, Art. VI., para. 2. Two multilateral organizational treaties are particularly relevant: the United Nations Charter and the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The US is a party to the UN Charter, the foundational treaty of the international law system. The UN Charter was adopted and ratified by the US Senate in 1945 and came into effect on 24 October 1945. Including the US there are now 193 sovereign states of the UN which are legally bound parties to the Charter. (Also, two observer states, the Holy See and Palestine). The US is a party to the OAS Charter, adopted in 1948, ratified by the US and in effect since 1951.
The UN Charter is crystal clear about the duties of member states. Pursuant to Article 2(3), the US is required to settle international disputes by peaceful means so as not to threaten international peace and security. Under Art. 2(4) the US is required to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the UN. Purposes of the UN as set out in Art. 1(1)-(3) include developing friendly relations based on respect for principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, suppressing acts of aggression, settling disputes in conformity with principles of international law, solving problems of economic, social, etc., character by cooperation and promoting and respecting human rights for all, regardless of race, sex, language, and religion.
The OAS Charter also is perfectly clear on its principles and the fundamental rights and duties of each member state (Ch. IV). Arts. 18-20 have particular application to the US threats and acts toward Venezuela.
Art. 18 No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements.
Art. 19 No State may use or encourage the use of coercive measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another State and obtain from it advantages of any kind.
Art. 20 The territory of a State is inviolable; it may not be the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or other measures of force taken by another State, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatever. No territorial acquisitions or special advantages obtained either by force or by other means of coercion shall be recognized.
The US is in violation of these duties, which are owed not only to Venezuela but erga omnes, to all others. The US breach of duties damages Venezuela specifically, interfering with its right to self-determination, to be treated as an equal state, its national sovereignty and its territorial integrity. US violations affect the entire international legal system, undermining respect for the US, causing fear and chaos, and spawning disinclination to rely on law. US violations invite other states to use threats and force, rather than to rely on international law, including recourse to international courts and other judicial bodies. US violations are contrary to building cooperation to advance human rights, as required by UN Charter Art. 56 (part of Ch. IX, International Economic and Social Co-operation).
The President and specific members of his administration, including the Secretaries of State and War, made threats to overthrow the President of Venezuela by military/CIA coup, stating that the Venezuelan president’s days were “numbered,” and today, January 3, 2026, Trump committed another grave war crime, by kidnapping Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, whose whereabouts are unknown and by bombing the city of Caracas. (This kidnapping is reminiscent of the US kidnapping of President Aristide of Haiti and his wife by an earlier administration.) The US has declared a naval blockade against Venezuela to prevent commerce, including transportation of oil from Venezuela, an act of war and has blocked the ability of safe travel for vessels traveling to and from Venezuela. Elliott Abrams, former special envoy to Venezuela during the first Trump administration, confirmed in a statement to Michael Wilner, Bureau Chief of the Washington Post, that the purpose of the naval blockade is to “asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy.” (Washington Post, 12/31/25) The US has interfered with Venezuelan air space, part of its national territory, including hampering civilian communications necessary for international aviation, an act of war. The US has imposed additional illegal Unilateral Coercive Measures (referred to as “sanctions” by the US media without reference to their illegality) on specific vessels which have transited through Venezuelan ocean space, through its Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone, engaged in commercial shipping. The US has attacked civilian and commercial vessels with weapons and drones, boarded vessels, kidnapped crew members of ships and killed crew members of smaller boats on the High Seas. The US has interfered with the ability of nationals of Venezuela and its neighboring states, such as Colombia, to engage in fishing, their livelihood. The US has violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Art. 88, which reserves the High Seas (international waters) for peaceful purposes and Art. 89, which prohibits any state from subjecting part of the High Seas to its sovereignty, which the US has accomplished through a massive occupation of ocean space by its naval and Coast Guard vessels. The US has stolen marine vessels flagged in several states, in violation of UNCLOS Art. 90, which permits each state to flag ships on the high seas. Marine vessels and their cargo (oil) which have approached or transited Venezuelan waters have been seized and the US President has stated those will be retained by the US, in violation of maritime law. US aggression against Venezuela and specifically US military operations in airspace in and near Venezuela have endangered international peace and security by jeopardizing the safety of civilian aviation. Specifically, a collision between a US civilian airplane (JetBlue flight from Curaçao to NY) and US military aircraft was narrowly avoided in Caribbean airspace near Venezuela.
The media has failed to clarify the US violations of international law, mostly parroting the language of USG spokespeople, whose intent is to isolate Venezuela, normalize threats and violence, and distract from legal issues and legality. In the January 3 edition of The Guardian, the writers profess ignorance about whether the acts of kidnapping and bombing another country violate the law. Some of the euphemistic language used, besides “sanctions” mentioned above, has included “regime change” rather than illegal interference in the internal affairs of another country or illegal overthrow of another government or illegal coup, and “strikes” on boats, rather than using the words killing and murder of people on the boats, or any discussion of depriving people of their right to life, as protected by Art. 6, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by the US.
Venezuela, supported by Security Council members, requested a special session of the UN Security Council under Art. VI of the UN Charter, Pacific Settlement of Disputes to discuss US threats and use of force and the problem of threats to international peace and security of the region and that session was held on 23 December 2025. A majority of states conclude the US is in violation of international law prohibiting aggression. There will need to be another session of the UNSC after today’s coup. The General Assembly also can and should address collective measures to stop US aggression, one of the most serious crimes. On December 24, authoritative human rights lawyers of the UN, three UN Special Rapporteurs and one Independent Expert* issued a statement on the US threats and actions against Venezuela. (These are independent legal authorities who report to the UN Human Rights Council, which provides interpretation and advice via the Economic and Social Council to the parliamentary body of the UN, the General Assembly.) Their statement was clear. They named what the US is doing to Venezuela as illegal armed aggression. They stated the US has no right whatsoever to enforce its illegal Unilateral Coercive measures through an armed blockade. They stated that since 1974 when the General Assembly defined aggression, a blockade was an illegal act, that military force is aggression. Further, they stated that Venezuela has a right to self-defense against the US under Art. 51 of the UN Charter. They stated that the US Congress should investigate the murders of the people on boats as a violation of the right to life. No doubt there will be additional statements by human rights experts on the illegality of the coup by the US.
It is historically noteworthy that, just like the Reagan administration in the 1980s when it tried to justify its support for the Contra war against Nicaragua, the Trump administration has tried to redefine what “self-defense” is. It’s an old trick, to invert who has the right to self-defense, in order to justify US aggression.
On December 24, 2025, the legal experts also called on all states to take action to stop the blockade and killings. They mentioned that universal jurisdiction is available to prosecute the crime of aggression and is recognized as a legal approach open to all states to bring those in the US responsible for these crimes to justice.
Besides collective action, the US public should demand impeachment of the President and Vice President.
*Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; George Katrougalos, Independent Expert on Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order; Surya Deva, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development; and Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association.
Martha L. Schmidt holds law degrees from University of Washington (LL.M., Law and Marine Affairs) and University of Wisconsin (J.D.). Currently she is a Board director of the Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS), a member of the Task Force of the Monique and Roland Weyl People’s Academy of International Law (PAIL), a co-chair of the Human Rights Framework Project and member of the Anti-Militarism Working Group of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). For more than 15 years she has been involved as educator and strategist with groups in the US working nationally on the human right to health. In 2025 she was author of The Rights to Life and Health: How financing affects the right to health care in the U.S., a “shadow” report by the NLG and seven other NGOs to the UN Human Rights Council for the Universal Periodic Review of the US.
Before “retirement”, she practiced labor rights, equal employment and juvenile law in Washington and Illinois. She chaired the World Peace Through Law Section of the Washington State Bar Association several times and led a successful effort for a Bar resolution supporting US ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. She also co-chaired NLG subcommittees on Peace and Disarmament, the (occupied) Hawaiian Kingdom, and the Task Force on the Americas.
International solidarity activities have included trial observing (Peru), electoral observing (El Salvador), electoral acompañante (Venezuela) and participation in humanitarian, peace and educational delegations to Cuba, Colombia and Nicaragua.
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