Charter in Application: Venezuela
Context in neutral terms
The situation involving Venezuela has generated sustained political, economic, humanitarian, and regional effects over an extended period. It unfolds within a context of internal governance challenges, external pressure, contested legitimacy, and prolonged international polarization.
In early January 2026, United States military forces conducted a large-scale strike operation in Venezuela, resulting in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores. Both were flown to the United States and arraigned on federal charges, to which they entered not guilty pleas in a Manhattan federal court. The Venezuelan Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, was declared interim president under provisions of the Venezuelan constitution following the operation. The United Nations Secretary-General expressed concern about the potential for instability and broader regional impact, and numerous states and international bodies emphasised respect for international law and the UN Charter.
Actions taken by domestic and external actors occur within a highly interconnected international system, where measures such as military operations, sanctions, recognition policies, or diplomatic isolation produce cascading effects across economic stability, regional migration, energy markets, and institutional trust.
Relevant Charter principles
Key Charter principles engaged include sovereign equality and agency, protection from external domination and coercion, transparency of impact, predictability and restraint, interpretive clarity, and responsibility for systemic effects beyond immediate political objectives. The events also bring into focus principles related to the non-use of force and the role of multilateral institutional authorization under the United Nations Charter.
Tensions and trade-offs
Responses to the situation raise persistent tensions between external pressure and sovereign agency, between efforts to influence internal political outcomes and the risks of economic and humanitarian spillover, and between normative objectives and systemic stability. Measures intended to constrain or influence governing authorities may also affect civilian populations, regional neighbours, and third states.
The large-scale military operation by a powerful external actor, conducted without universal institutional authorization, highlights the trade-off between claims of domestic legality or law enforcement and potential violations of international norms regarding the use of force. Diverse international reactions, including concerns articulated at the United Nations and by states across regions, illustrate the difficulty of achieving interpretive coherence and institutional response in the face of unilateral action.
What the Charter clarifies
The Charter clarifies the importance of interpretive clarity, proportionality, and restraint in conditions of prolonged institutional paralysis. It highlights the responsibility of all actors to assess how actions are perceived across different audiences and how cumulative effects may contribute to systemic stress or long-term instability.
The Charter also emphasises transparency of impact, particularly where actions including military operations generate indirect humanitarian or regional consequences that extend beyond their immediate targets. By focusing on systemic pressures and anticipatory effects, the Charter offers a shared frame for analysing how unilateral actions interact with principles of sovereign agency and institutional legitimacy.
Sovereign equality as analytical baseline
Applied to this situation, the Charter reinforces sovereign equality as an analytical baseline rather than a conditional status. The sovereignty of a state is not determined by assessments of governance quality, legitimacy disputes, or external approval. Actions taken against a state are therefore evaluated against the presumption of sovereign equality, not retroactively justified by disagreement with its leadership.
Interpretive clarity under contested narratives
The Charter also highlights the central importance of interpretive clarity. Competing descriptions of the operation, including law enforcement, security intervention, political transition, or coercive force, coexist without a shared interpretive framework. Where interpretation is unilateral and contested, predictability declines even if intent is asserted to be lawful or necessary. The resulting ambiguity increases miscalculation risk across the system.
Restraint and precedent risk
Finally, the Charter draws attention to restraint as a function of systemic effect rather than declared purpose. Actions that involve direct intervention against sitting leadership without universally accepted institutional authorization carry precedent implications that extend beyond the immediate case. Such actions may alter expectations concerning immunity, territorial integrity, and the conditions under which force is considered permissible, thereby increasing long-term instability even where short-term objectives are claimed.
What it deliberately does not resolve
The Charter does not determine questions of political legitimacy, legality of measures under domestic or international law, responsibility for internal conditions, or appropriate policy outcomes in response to contested events. It does not adjudicate disputes, prescribe courses of action, or assess compliance with the UN Charter or other international legal instruments.
It remains a framework for structured reflection and risk awareness, not a mechanism for enforcement, decision-making, or moral judgment. The Charter does not substitute for institutional legal or diplomatic processes established by international law or multilateral decision-making bodies.