Today, we witnessed something unprecedented: one country arrested the sitting president of another country located thousands of kilometers away and much of what we believed about international law may no longer hold.
According to public reports, U.S. forces allegedly detained Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and transported him to American territory.
If this is true, several serious issues arise that cannot be ignored.
Under international law, a sitting head of state enjoys immunity from foreign jurisdiction. This is not “diplomatic immunity,” but the basic legal protection that allows a state to function without the risk that its leader could be seized by another country for political reasons.
A head of state cannot be arrested by another country without:
a warrant issued by an international court,
a transparent legal procedure,
the right to defense,
the right to challenge the measure,
and full respect for the presumption of innocence.
An arrest carried out without a conviction, without a trial, without access to legal defense, and without the involvement of a competent international tribunal is not justice — it is arbitrary detention.
The argument “we do not recognize him as a legitimate president” is political, not legal. If this were accepted as a rule, any state could declare another country’s leader “illegitimate” and seize them by force. That would mark the collapse of the rules‑based international order.
The distinction between justice and force is straightforward:
Justice requires procedure, courts, rights, and transparency.
Force relies only on power and unilateral decisions.
If this precedent is confirmed, we are not witnessing the application of law, but the triumph of might over right. And in a world where rules apply only to the weak, no one is truly safe.
This is not about liking or disliking a particular leader.
It is about what international law still means — and whether meaningful limits on great powers still exist.
Everything else is propaganda.
