By Juan Romero
In the dialectic of global power, law has never been a neutral entity; it is, as Marx rightly pointed out, the will of the ruling class made into a law for all. However, what has occurred with the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro Moros by US troops marks a point of no return. We are no longer facing the subtle hegemony of the bourgeois “Rule of Law,” but rather the bare exposure of imperial power in its most desperate phase.
This analysis does not seek merely to denounce an outrage, but to unravel the implications of an act that turns the world into a lawless territory, where the only rule is the range of Washington’s missiles.
From the perspective of international law, the detention of a sitting head of state is a legal aberration. The principle of jurisdictional immunity (immunity ratione personae) is not a personal privilege, but a pillar of coexistence among nations. By violating it, the United States has blown apart the Vienna Convention and the principle of the sovereign equality of states enshrined in the UN Charter.
When foreign troops capture a head of state without a formal declaration of war, they are not carrying out an “arrest” – they are executing an act of aggression. International law defines aggression as the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another state. In the absence of a declared state of war, Maduro’s appearance before a New York court lacks legal basis: it is a political kidnapping disguised as a judicial process.
President Maduro’s decision to declare himself a prisoner of war and to invoke the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 shifts the conflict from the terrain of US domestic criminal law, where they attempt to treat him as a common criminal, to the realm of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
The Third Geneva Convention establishes that prisoners of war must be treated humanely in all circumstances. Article 13 explicitly prohibits exposing prisoners to public curiosity. Every time corporate media outlets broadcast images of Maduro in the dock, the United States incurs a blatant violation of the very treaties it has signed. They seek moral lynching, but IHL protects the honour of the captive as a representative of a legitimate belligerent force.
Under Geneva, a prisoner of war may only be tried by military courts offering the same guarantees as those afforded to the soldiers of the detaining power. A district judge in New York has no legal authority over an enemy combatant protected by IHL. By insisting on a civilian trial, Washington confesses that it is not seeking justice, but a political execution through lawfare.
This act of piracy has seismic consequences that the State Department seems not to have fully calculated:
End of diplomatic security: If a head of state can be kidnapped and tried in New York, no leader of the Global South is safe. This pushes nations toward an arms race and absolute distrust of Western mediation mechanisms.
Acceleration of multipolarity: China, Russia and Iran see in this kidnapping definitive proof that the US “rules-based order” is in reality an “order based on its whims.” The shift toward BRICS+ and financial systems outside the control of the dollar is a matter of biological and political survival.
Death of the UN: The inability of the United Nations to prevent or reverse this kidnapping seals its historical irrelevance, similar to what happened to the League of Nations before the Second World War.
Where does this conflict lead us? Let us analyze three possible scenarios:
Permanent legal quagmire
International recognition of Maduro as a prisoner of war forces the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to intervene. The US becomes trapped in a contradiction: if it recognizes him as a POW, it admits that a war exists and loses the “criminal justice” narrative; if it does not, it openly violates Geneva, deepening its international isolation. Maduro becomes a “Latin American Nelson Mandela” whose cell turns into the epicenter of global diplomacy.
Escalation from the Global South
In response to the kidnapping, allied nations apply the principle of reciprocity. US assets abroad are frozen and diplomatic missions expelled. The world divides into two irreconcilable legal blocs, in which the West loses its ability to dictate moral norms. The global economy suffers a systemic shock as Venezuela and its allies radicalize their anti-imperialist stance.
Awakening of the peoples
This is the most hopeful – and most dangerous for capital – scenario. Maduro’s kidnapping catalyzes a wave of popular indignation that transcends Venezuelan borders. Revolutionary thinking becomes action: strikes, mass mobilizations and the strengthening of global resistance networks. The figure of the President is transmuted into a symbol of the struggle of the weak against the bully, of reason against force.
The road ahead is hard. The empire, in its old age, is more prone to spasms of irrational violence. But in kidnapping Nicolás Maduro, the empire has also captured its own condemnation. They have imprisoned a man, but they have freed an idea: that sovereignty does not bow before the courts of capital.
Our task as revolutionary intellectuals and militants is to keep the flame of legal and human truth burning. The defense of Maduro is the defense of the self-determination of all the peoples of the world. Against the darkness of the imperial cell, we oppose the light of collective consciousness.
The justice of the peoples will prevail over the barbarism of empires!
Dr. Juan Eduardo Romero is a Deputy in Venezuela’s National Assembly
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