Under the emerging power-centric interpretations, these actions are dubious and potentially dangerous, as they undermine the norms which protect weaker states. But lamenting things will not help here. For the EU and for Estonia, the correct response is not silence or opportunism, but principled consistency.

The capture of Venezuela's dictator and de facto president Nicolás Maduro via a military operation and his prosecution in the U.S. have shaken legal theorists around the world greatly. Whether this has also shaken, or even truly shattered, the "rules-based world order," as is claimed here and there, is at least debatable. To put it briefly, the order is probably not shattered.

The so-called rules-based world order has in fact been in tatters since at least 2014, when a member of the UN Security Council, in the most brutal violation of the UN Charter, invaded another UN member state, occupied Donbas and annexed Crimea. This was followed by no genuinely serious response from the UN or from the Western great powers. Sanctions, statements and the shrugging of shoulders do not count.

The legal order was violated then and has been violated ever since. And the massive war of aggression launched by Russia on February 24, 2022 is such an all-encompassing violation of international law, an international crime as unequivocally established by the UN, the EU, the U.S. and the ICC, that it is somewhat farcical, at the end of the 12th year of this continuing crime, to claim that Maduro's arrest has destroyed the rules-based world order.

It is also comedic to claim that Maduro's arrest by the U.S. could have provided Russians or Chinese with the justification to "act in the same way." Russia, Iran, Belarus, North Korea and their allies: Hamas, Hezbollah, Nigerian paramilitaries, Latin American cartels and other malign actors, have needed no justification whatsoever to wage aggressive wars, to threaten other states or peoples with force, finance terrorism, sabotage and kill. They do all of this quite unmolested as things are, and the UN Security Council, designated as the guardian of the "world order," is an indecisive and powerless chat meet.

By this I do not of course mean to say that the U.S. military operation to arrest Maduro is insignificant. Under classical international law, this operation was most likely impermissible. But one may ask: So what? Is the world now a better or worse place because of that impermissibility? There is as it goes no easy answer to this. In fact it cannot yet be answered at all, as the world is coming apart at so many other seams that no one knows how and when it will be stitched back together.

Briefly, however, a legal interim summary of the Maduro case. Why many legal experts outside the U.S. administration, if not most of them, have qualified what happened as illegal.

First, the operation constituted a prima facie violation of Venezuela's sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is prohibited by international common law, plus codified in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. The use of armed force on the territory of another state is lawful only with authorization from the UN Security Council or under Article 51, and then for self-defense. It can be argued that either of these conditions were met. Venezuela did not give consent and there is no Security Council mandate.

Second, the operation constituted a prohibited extraterritorial law enforcement. International law draws a sharp dividing line between prescriptive jurisdiction (legislation), judicial jurisdiction (adjudication of cases) and enforcement jurisdiction. The latter — coercive arrest on the territory of a foreign state — is almost entirely prohibited without that state's consent. Extradition treaties and mutual legal assistance mechanisms exist precisely to avoid such unilateral cross-border arrests. Thus, the forcible removal by the military of a sitting foreign head of state violates the principle of non-intervention.

Third, the arrest violated head-of-state immunity (immunity ratione personae). At the time of arrest, Maduro was exercising effective executive power and was the de facto head of state. International common law custom grants sitting heads of state absolute personal immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of foreign states, regardless of the gravity of the charges. This immunity applies even when the arresting state disputes the legitimacy of that government — a principle confirmed by the case law of the International Court of Justice (most notably the precedent of the [former Sudanese head of state Omar Hassan Ahmad] al-Bashir arrest warrant case).

Fourth, it can be argued that regardless of presentation, the operation constituted a violent regime change. By removing the head of government, the U.S. directly interfered in Venezuela's political independence. International law does not recognize any doctrine of "illegal but morally justified intervention." The ends, however noble, do not legitimize the means.

To sum up, the operation violated four principles of international law, involving: Unlawful use of force, unlawful extraterritorial arrest, violation of head-of-state immunity and prohibited regime change. Under orthodox international law, the conclusion seems clear. The operation was illegal.

Nonetheless, the U.S. position is not legally incoherent. It can be argued that the U.S. relies on novel, yet increasingly used, arguments.

First, Maduro did not have lawful head-of-state status. The U.S. and many other states, including those in the EU, did not recognize him as the legitimate president, and his regime was considered an international criminal enterprise engaged in drug trafficking, terrorism and crimes against humanity. Through this prism, he lost immunity ratione personae and could be treated more as an internationally wanted suspect, than as a protected sovereign leader.

Second, the U.S. could rely on universal jurisdiction. Certain crimes — crimes against humanity, large-scale international drug trafficking and possibly also terrorism-related crimes — allow jurisdiction regardless of where they were committed.

It could be argued that international law is now out of step with the times. Since the early modern era, for example, piracy has been considered a universal crime, and all states have the right to arrest and prosecute pirates anywhere (why else would the Russians have concocted piracy charges against me (in 2012 – ed.), if not out of respect for international law). It could be argued that Maduro himself had usurped Venezuela's independence and sovereignty, that he was a usurper, and that the United States did not violate Venezuela's sovereignty but set out to restore it.

With this, Maduro's arrest could be treated as a law-enforcement operation against an individually responsible criminal, not as hostilities against the state of Venezuela.

Third, the operation can be viewed as self-defence against international threats under Article 51 of the UN Charter. It has been claimed that the Maduro regime enabled ongoing drug flows and the activities of armed non-state actors that caused serious harm to U.S. security, that these threats stemmed from Maduro personally, and that the Venezuelan authorities were unwilling or unable to respond to them themselves. The justification for U.S. action is a security threat which it was forced to defend itself from.

Finally, it can be argued that the United States has begun to apply the principle of "responsibility to protect" (R2P), unanimously approved at the UN in 2005. Under this principle, all states have the primary responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. If a state fails in this, other states have a duty of care to intervene. Although R2P does not permit unilateral use of force without Security Council authorization, it can be argued that there is a moral obligation to respond to rampant human rights violations in the world (Uyghurs, Sudan, Ukraine, Nigeria, etc.). In Venezuela's case, genocide is not alleged, but it can be argued that arresting the individual most responsible for systematic repression and crimes against humanity is more proportionate and less harmful than broader military intervention, and thus justified in R2P terms. This operation protected the Venezuelan people and their rights rather than violating them.

Of course, such a new and turbulent legal landscape is frightening and, especially for a small state, dangerous, and it raises a vast number of as yet unanswered questions.

But if we think for a moment, would we have refrained from applauding if the U.S. had carried out a similar operation against Vladimir Putin? Or the EU against Aleksandr Lukashenko? Or South Korea, together with Japan, against Kim Jong Un?

For several years we have been complaining that not enough is being done to counter Russia's shadow fleet. And now the U.S., on the high seas and, in the opinion of several experts in the law of the sea, entirely illegally took down a shadow-fleet tanker sailing under the Russian flag in violation of sanctions. Do we consider this a good or a bad thing?

Is it not rather the case that when the enforcement of the norms we demand actually begins by force, it turns out that a violator of norms can be called to order precisely only by violating norms?

But back to Maduro. As Lauri Mälksoo said, Maduro's arrest is now a fait accompli, a done deal, and griping about it, as Jaak Madison put it, will not change much. Still, let us gripe a bit more. Of course it is important what happens next in Venezuela, whether a transfer of power to freely elected leaders will be coming and how that will take place. The U.S. has not been paying much attention to the legal side of what has happened or is happening, but the precedents being created may become important in shaping a new world order and new norms of international life. In this, both Estonia and Europe naturally need to have a say.

There is no point in demanding that the world "return" to a rules-based world order, because let us be honest, the rules-based world order has been a sham since at least 2014. Only part of the world complied with the rules, and even that part did so selectively.

Now the leading state of the democratic world has begun to create its own norms. Incidentally, it is not yet known what that country's Congress thinks of the new norms, or how US voters' assessments will shape up this year and in 2028. Everything may still change. At present, international law is under enormous pressure from great powers, force, new precedents and the shedding of pretenses. For the EU, and especially for Estonia, the stakes are unusually high. Small states depend disproportionately on stable and predictable international law.

Precedents which normalize unilateral arrests of heads of state weaken the protection on which Estonia itself relies. At the same time, they show that internal cohesion of states, the rule of law, the strength of alliances and independent defense capability are in the new world conditio sine qua non, an indispensable condition. Naturally, we would prefer legal clarity. But it must be understood that this cannot truly emerge before a just peace in the war in Ukraine, the punishment of Russia and Europe's genuine strategic autonomy. That will take a long time, and until then we must endure. Of course, there is also a possible scenario in which such a solution does not come in the foreseeable future. In that case, we will have to rely on enduring alliances and the brotherhood in arms of the Nordic peoples. Law does not crystallize before peace.

This should not mean that we should pretend that U.S. actions do not create serious legal problems under existing international law, especially with regard to the use of force, sovereignty and immunity. This position is not anti-American. It is self-evident and calls not for criticism, but for constructive proposals.

Perhaps the solution would not be to demand we "never again remove dictators," but rather, let us complete the removal of dictators worldwide and then hold a global peace conference to agree on new rules. In the case of Venezuela, Europe should offer the U.S. assistance in restoring order and administering a smooth transition, rather than making demands from an armchair.

For now, it is more important in any case to be in that part of the world where R2P is not violated, and to completely exclude the possibility that anyone could claim that we ourselves violate it.

Europe should probably oppose any indefinite external "administration" of Venezuela. But opposition has a substantive meaning only when we also have something to offer to improve the situation. If international intervention is needed, this should be multilateral, time-limited and legally justified. But then let us be ready to participate in that multilateralism. For Estonia, this position should be especially firm. Estonia's historical experience makes it extremely sensitive to arguments that sovereignty can be "lost" through wrongdoing. For this reason, Tallinn should express a preference for holding perpetrators of international crimes accountable through international mechanisms rather than through ad hoc use of force, and affirm that the removal of a dictator must be followed by an expression of free will in the form of elections.

In conclusion, the Venezuela operation has revealed a widening gap between written law and the law as applied in practice by great powers. Under classical international law, U.S. actions were illegal. Under emerging power-centric interpretations, this is debatable and potentially dangerous, as it undermines norms that protect weaker states.

But wailing will not help here. For the EU and for Estonia, the correct response is not silence or opportunism, but a principled consistency. To defend democratic outcomes and to resist precedents which may one day be used against them. For this consistency to actually count for something, everything must be done to ensure that in today's world we do not become that "weaker state."

If we want the U.S. to refrain from seizing Greenland from Denmark, then Europe itself should help protect it from "Chinese and Russian vessels." If we want Ukraine to have security guarantees, then first we put our own troops and our own skin in the game. If we want the U.S. to help defend Europe, then we take on the main burden ourselves, as every state must do under R2P. Let us do all this, and then we will also be able to have a say in shaping a new world order and in changing international legal norms.