If Unilateral Force Becomes Normalized, Who Will be Disciplined Next and by Whom? The Structural Vulnerability of Third World Sovereignty

[Janaha Selvaraj is a lecturer at the Department of Legal Studies of The Open University of Sri Lanka. She holds LL.B (Hons) from University of Colombo and LL.M in International Law from the South Asian University, New Delhi, India]

Introduction

Recent United States (US) military action against Venezuela raises familiar but unresolved questions about the prohibition on the use of force in international law. Since the presidential leadership of Nicolas Maduro, the US has criticized the Venezuelan government for undermining democracy and violating human rights and in response, imposed targeted sanctions on Venezuela. Venezuela’s alleged cooperation with States such as Russia and Iran, cited by the US as regional security threats, had intensified periodic threats of military invention. Against this context, on 3 January 2026, the US conducted a military operation against Venezuela during which US forces carried out airstrikes and captured President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, subsequently flying them to the US to face criminal charges including allegations of narcoterrorism and drug trafficking.

President Donald J. Trump publicly announced the operation as a success and indicated that the US would exercise temporary governance over Venezuelan affairs to facilitate a political transition and secure stability. The US  military action against Venezuela must be understood against debates in international law regarding the use of force and State sovereignty as the seizure of a foreign head of State by US  military executed without any approval from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). While official justifications remain politically framed, the legal implications raise significant concern.

Once again, a powerful State has resorted to unilateral force outside the framework of collective security, testing the resilience of Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter and the institutional authority of the UN itself. This submission does not seek to assess the political wisdom of the intervention. Rather, it asks what such interventions reveal about the structure of international law when viewed from the perspective of third world States that experience the law less as discretion and more as discipline.

The Prohibition on the Use of Force

The UN Charter establishes a comprehensive prohibition on the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of States. Self defence is an exception under Article 51; and and actions authorized by the Security Council are deliberately narrow (see UNSC Res 678 (1990), UN Doc S/RES/678 ; UNSC Res 1973 (2011), UN Doc S/RES/1973). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has consistently interpreted the “inherent right” of self defence under Article 51 in the decisions of Nicaragua v United States and Iran v United States only arising “if an armed attack occurs” requiring a threshold of gravity, necessity and proportionality. The architecture of the UN Charter reflects a conscious rejection of unilateral enforcement in favor of collective decision making. Similarly, the collective mechanism structured to centralize decisions on the use of force under the Security Council authorization of Chapter VII of the UN Charter, through its resolutions authorized force on behalf of the international community for “all necessary measures” as explicit , limited and purpose bound mandates. UNSC Resolution 678 (1990) authorized force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait and:

“… to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security.”

In the Venezuelan case, neither exception appears to apply in a straightforward manner. No Security Council authorization has been forthcoming and claims of self defence strain established jurisprudence on armed attack, necessity, and proportionality (see Iran v United States; DRC v Uganda). This pattern reflects a broader trend in which powerful states treat the limit imposed by the UN Charter as flexible policy considerations rather than binding legal constraints.

Intervention and the Persistence of Legal Formalism

Actions that result in the removal, capture or coercive displacement of a political leadership of State engage the long-standing prohibition on intervention in the internal affairs of States. The ICJ has consistently affirmed that coercive interference in the political choices of another State violates customary international law. In Nicaragua v United States, the Court rejected both ideological and security based justifications for intervention, emphasizing that political independence includes the right of a people to determine its own leadership without external coercion. What is striking in recent practice is not the abandonment of this doctrine, but its containment through legal formalism. By fragmenting operations into discrete legal narratives such as self defence, counter terrorism, protection of nationals, regional stabilization and humanitarian necessity to intervene into States preserves the appearance of legality while bypassing its substance. Although the language of legality is maintained, its elasticity of  structural constraint has become softened and formalized through framing armed attack as anticipatory action, regional instability as defensive necessity, regime removal as transitional governance, and occupation as temporary stabilization. From a TWAIL perspective, this formalism is not neutral. It functions to preserve asymmetry allowing powerful States to manage legality while weaker States remain subject to it.

The long-claimed universality of international law has often been uneven its operation. For many post-colonial States, the law is encountered less as a shield than as a mechanism of regulation. As TWAIL scholars have argued, international law emerged historically alongside imperial governance, structuring hierarchies of authority while maintaining the rhetoric of equality. According to the analysis of Anthony Anghie, while international law maintaining formal equality, it demonstrated historical differentiation between ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’ nations. The contemporary reinterpretations to Article 51 through which powerful States reclaim interpretive discretion and bind weaker States to such interpretations indicate the same old pattern in international law.

Although the formal architecture of sovereignty has evolved, patterns of selective enforcement persist. Intervention is often justified on the grounds of necessity, while strict adherence to the principle of non-intervention is demanded in the name of legality. The capture of the Venezuelan leader by the US reinforces this perception. It suggests that compliance with international law is evaluated not solely on legal grounds but through geopolitical alignment. Such selectivity undermines the credibility of the legal system specially for States in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that rely on the Charter framework as protection against coercion.

Regional Threat and Unilateral Force: Precedents and Patterns

The invocation of a regional threat as a justification for the unilateral use of force is well documented. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq citing weapons of mass destruction and regional stabilization, where no authorization was granted by the UN Security Council. The then Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, stated that this constituted an invasion. Similarly in 1986, the US intervened in Panama under the justification of protecting nationals and combating narcotics trafficking. A Security Council resolution against this intervention was vetoed and the General Assembly declared the intervention a violation of international law. In the same vein, Russia justified the use of force by invoking the protection of nationals and regional stability against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. The General Assembly resolutions condemned the conduct of Russia as well. However, in each instance where force was exercised by powerful States against small nations under the justification of protecting nationals and maintaining regional stability, political condemnation followed with rare institutional sanction.

The invocation of a ‘regional threat’ to justify the U.S. capture of President Nicolas Maduro sets a potential precedent in international law against third world States whose sovereignty is already structurally vulnerable. As Weiss notes, the mention of regional security frequently operates as a legitimizing tool in normalizing legal prohibition and political motive, formally abandoning the UN Charter framework and its grounds for self defence and its interpretation. If unchallenged, such practices could erode the normative protections of sovereignty and non-intervention undermining the collective security mechanism to prevent unilateral aggression.

A Possible Pathway Toward: Normalization and the Problem of Precedent

The most consequential aspect of unilateral force is its cumulative effect. Each instance that goes unchallenged legally or institutionally contributes to the normalization of exception. Over time, the exception cases to be exceptional. International law depends not only on rules, but on shared restraint. As Koskenniemi has observed, when restraint becomes selective, legality risks collapsing into discretion. The concern, then is not merely whether the Venezuelan intervention is lawful but what it signals about future discipline ‘who will be subject to enforcement and under whose authority’.

In essence, international law has not collapsed; the UN charter framework remains intact, Article 2(4) of the UN Charter continues to stand, the restrictive interpretations of the ICJ persist. However, the elasticity in the use of force continues to not only narrow protection for Third World States, but also to establish an evolving customary international law, with State practice accompanied by opinio juris even in the face of criticism. If unilateral force becomes normalized, international law risks transforming from a system of mutual constraint into one of asymmetrical discipline. For weaker States, the promise of sovereign equality becomes increasingly fragile for stronger ones, legality becomes optional. The erosion of the prohibition on the use of force does not announce itself dramatically. It proceeds incrementally through tolerated exceptions and deferred accountability. From the perspective of the TWAIL, the question is no longer whether international law prohibits unilateral force, but whether that prohibition still operates law or merely as guidance for those without power.