Op-Ed’s with Tessera: Contrasting the Invasions of Panama and Venezuela under International Law

Photo: Britanica U.S. invasion of Panama Buildings engulfed in flames following the U.S. invasion of Panama, December 1989. https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-States-invasion-of-Panama

 

By: Dan Prasuhn & Arash Aslan Beigi

While the US was inarguably the most important progenitor of the modern international legal order, its commitment to the rule of law has been questioned many times before—the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, its refusal to ratify the Rome Statute, among many other examples. The US invasions of Panama in 1989 and Venezuela in 2026 were both conducted to arrest each respective country’s de facto leaders, General Manuel Noriega and Nicolas Maduro. We argue that these violations of international law should not be analyzed in a vacuum, but that they are a culmination of decades of US policy when international law conflicts with the perceived national interest. We therefore argue that the Trump administration’s assault on international law did not come from nowhere, but that the parallels between Panama and Venezuela illustrate a great deal about how we got here and implications for the international order. 

The HW Bush administration’s actions in Panama raised significant concerns regarding international law and laid a foundation that has allowed for subsequent violations like that which recently took place in Venezuela. However, the Trump administration’s blatant disregard for international treaties and norms can and must be viewed differently. While the HW Bush administration made repeated overtures to the spirit of the UN Charter and framed the operation as furthering international peace and security, the Trump administration has done none of the same. From planning for US control over Venezuela’s natural resources,¹ or even going so far as to discuss invading allied territory in Greenland,² the current administration is positioning the US to lead in an international order characterized by no other moral framework than “might makes right.” 

The US invaded Panama in December 1989 to depose and arrest Noriega, who had been indicted in US courts on drug charges. Noriega’s regime had also initiated many hostile actions against US interests and personnel in the region, with the murder of an unarmed US Marine triggering Bush’s decision to authorize military force. Noriega surrendered on 3 January 1990, and was tried, convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison in the US. The operation was an early example of unilateral American intervention not directly related to US-Soviet hostilities of the Cold War.³ Scholars have enunciated criticisms of the Bush administration’s actions in Panama as a violation of the UN Charter, Rio Treaty, and customary international law—we agree with such criticisms.⁴

We believe that previous scholarship underappreciates the fact that early tensions between US foreign policy goals and international law surfaced around this time. Despite the fact that “the International Court of Justice has recognized nonintervention as an operative principle, founded on the respect for sovereignty and political integrity,”⁵ the HW Bush administration’s Justice Department penned a memo arguing that the executive could lawfully authorize investigation and arrest actions that contravene customary international law. The same memo even went so far as to argue that Article 2(4) of the Charter, the very foundation of international law on the use of force, was not binding on the political branches as a matter of US domestic law and thus could also be disregarded by the president in deciding foreign policy.⁶

After Noriega’s arrest and extraction to the US, the HW Bush administration denied that he was entitled to any immunity as the de facto head of state of Panama. The prosecution argued that because the State Department hadn’t recognized Noriega as the legitimate head of state, courts could not enforce political beliefs that lay squarely with the executive branch under the Constitution.⁷ This judgement was upheld on appeal.⁸ While we acknowledge the complex conflict to establish legitimate governance of Panama that took place in the lead-up to the US invasion, the willingness to discard head of state immunity doctrines so quickly and easily is troubling. Though its importance and precedent is not as well established as the prohibition on the use of force, head of state immunity is a principle of sovereign equality and thus, should not be disregarded by powerful nations at will. 

Established precedent in international law dictates that ratione materiae, or immunity for actions performed as head of state, can only be revoked in instances of atrocity crimes–genocide, crimes against humanity, etc. These are judgements meant to be made by international tribunals and multilateral bodies, like the International Criminal Court. The legacy of Noriega’s capture as a military operation by a powerful nation that sought to disregard inconvenient aspects of international law sheds light on US actions in Venezuela today. Domestically, this was (1) the concentration of foreign policy-making power in the executive branch, and (2) the deference of Congress and the judiciary to presidential power. Internationally, it was the delegitimization of the international legal order by US action that faced some condemnation but no real pushback.⁹

The Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela face the same and many more scathing criticisms for its violation of international law. Administration officials have argued that because the invasion was a law enforcement operation carried out by the Department of Justice, it is not subject to the same prohibition on the use of force as military operations. This argument has no basis in international law, as scholars have noted both the view that the US has historically maintained on extraterritorial law enforcement activity, as well as the distinction between legislative enforcement (passing laws that extend jurisdiction beyond a state’s borders) versus executive enforcement (conducting arrests).¹⁰ The former is permitted under international law as it does not require the use of force and hence the violation of sovereignty, the latter is not. While the US may not accept Maduro’s legitimacy, his government unquestionably exercised “effective control” in a way that Noriega did not. Even the indictment from the Department of Justice describes him as Venezuela’s “de facto but illegitimate ruler.”¹¹ Regardless, the administration has little regard for Maduro’s immunity claims as a head of state, the question is whether the courts will defer to the executive as they previously have, or judge these claims for themselves. In the world order the administration seeks to build, rulers of smaller states are subject only to the will of their more powerful neighbours.¹²

The invasion of Panama stretched interpretations of international law and laid the foundation for the presumption that US national interests would always triumph when the two were in conflict. Previous political and legal justifications “remained around like a loaded gun”¹³ until an administration would come along that would not hesitate to disregard international law at will. The distinction is that while the HW Bush administration did not fit this definition, the current administration unquestionably does. While the HW Bush administration attempted to engage with the legal reasoning to justify their actions, the Trump administration is seemingly abandoning these frameworks entirely. Those who care about international rule of law and the peace and stability it brings should be greatly troubled when the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military asserts that since he isn’t “looking to hurt people,” he doesn’t “need international law,” that his power is constrained only by his “own morality.”¹⁴ International law isn’t meant to apply only to those who are “looking to hurt,” and when states can decide which laws apply to them at will, the stability of the international order falters. 

 

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Bibliography

1. Brian Schwartz, Benoit Morenne and Josh Dawsey, “Trump Team Works Up Sweeping Plan to Control Venezuelan Oil for Years to Come,’ Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2026, https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/trump-venezuela-oil-us-control-plan-265a39c1 
2. Mariam Khan, “US military is ‘always an option’ for Trump to acquire Greenland, White House official says,” ABC News, January 5, 2026, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-military-option-acquiring-greenland-white-house-official/story?id=128960041.
3. Eytan Gilboa, “The Panama Invasion Revisited: Lessons for the Use of Force in the Post Cold War Era.” Political Science Quarterly 110, no. 4 (1995), pp. 539–62, https://doi.org/10.2307/2151883.
4. Ved Nanda, “The Validity of United States Intervention in Panama under International Law,” American Journal of International Law 84, no. 2 (1990), pp. 494-503, https://doi.org/10.2307/2203462.
5. Ibid., p. 495.
6. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, “Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation To Override International Law In Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities,” June 21 1989, available at https://www.justice.gov/file/151131/dl?inline. 
7. “Separation of Powers. Head-of-State Immunity. Eleventh Circuit Holds That the Executive Branch’s Capture of Noriega Exempts Him from Head-of-State Immunity. United States v. Noriega, 117 F.3d 1206 (11th Cir. 1997).” Harvard Law Review 111, no. 3 (1998), pp. 849-54, https://doi.org/10.2307/1342208.
8.  United States v. Noriega, 117 F.3d 1206, 1212 (11th Cir. 1997), available at https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-11th-circuit/1089768.html. 
9.  The UN General Assembly issued a condemnation of the US invasion on 29 December 1989. See UN Doc. A/RES/44/240, available at https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/81030?ln=en&v=pdf. 
10.  Michael Schmitt et al., “International Law and the U.S. Military and Law Enforcement Operations in Venezuela,” Just Security, January 5, 2026, https://www.justsecurity.org/127981/international-law-venezuela-maduro/.
11. United States v. Maduro et al. S4 11 Cr. (205), available at https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl. 
12. Stephan Collinson, “Trump’s new US mission statement: Strength, force, power,” CNN, January 6, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/06/politics/trump-greenland-venezuela-colombia-miller-analysis 
13. Ryan Goodman, “Maduro Capture Operation and the President’s Duty to Faithfully Execute U.N. Charter,” Just Security, January 3, 2026, https://www.justsecurity.org/127962/maduro-capture-operation-and-presidents-duty-to-faithfully-execute-un-charter/
14.  David Sanger et al., “Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’,” New York Times, January 8 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html.