A Global South Perspective on the Capture of Nicolás Maduro: Sovereignty, Power, and the International Law

By Amb Valentine Opaluwa Ejeh, PhD

1. Introduction

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From a Global South perspective, proposals or threats to capture Nicolás Maduro cannot be understood merely as questions of legality or criminal accountability. They must be situated within the historical experience of imperialism, intervention, and asymmetrical power relations that have shaped international law itself. TWAIL scholars argue that international law has often functioned not as a neutral arbiter, but as a disciplinary tool used by powerful states to regulate, punish, or restructure weaker states. The Maduro case exemplifies this enduring tension.

2. Sovereignty as a Shield for the Global South

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For many states in the Global South, sovereignty is not an abstract legal concept but a hard-won protection against foreign domination. Postcolonial states embraced sovereignty as:

A guarantee against regime change

A defense against economic and military coercion

A symbol of political self-determination

From this standpoint, any unilateral attempt by the United States to capture a sitting Venezuelan leader represents a direct threat to the collective security of weaker states, regardless of the individual character of Maduro’s rule.

TWAIL scholars emphasize that sovereignty remains strongest where power asymmetry is greatest. Its erosion tends to occur selectively—primarily against states lacking military or economic leverage.

3. Criminalization as a Tool of Intervention

President Trump’s framing of Maduro as a criminal rather than a sovereign reflects a familiar pattern in Global South history: the criminalization of anti-hegemonic or non-aligned leaders.

Historically, similar narratives have been deployed against:

Patrice Lumumba (Congo)

Manuel Noriega (Panama)

Muammar Gaddafi (Libya)

From a TWAIL perspective, this strategy:

Individualizes political conflict

Masks geopolitical and economic interests

Recasts intervention as law enforcement rather than coercion

Crucially, domestic indictments issued by a powerful state are not internationally neutral acts. They reflect the interests and jurisdictional reach of that state, not a universal legal consensus.

4. Selective Accountability and Double Standards

A core critique from the Global South concerns selective enforcement of international norms. While Maduro is targeted for alleged crimes:

Leaders of powerful states are rarely subjected to external jurisdiction

Comparable or worse human rights abuses by U.S. allies often go unpunished

This selectivity undermines claims that intervention is motivated by universal justice. Instead, it reinforces the perception that international criminality is racialized and geopoliticized, disproportionately applied to leaders from the Global South.

5. Delegitimization and Democratic Conditionality

The Trump administration’s refusal to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate president reflects a broader trend of democratic conditionality, where sovereignty is made contingent on approval by powerful states.

From a Global South viewpoint, this raises serious concerns:

Who determines democratic legitimacy?

Why is this standard inconsistently applied?

How does external recognition override internal political realities?

TWAIL scholars argue that this practice revives a civilizing mission logic, in which powerful states assume authority to judge the political maturity of weaker ones.

6. Security Discourses and the Expansion of Intervention

Claims that Venezuela posed a transnational security threat echo post–Cold War and post-9/11 doctrines that broaden the concept of self-defense. From a Global South perspective, such doctrines are dangerous because they:

Blur the line between defense and aggression

Normalize extraterritorial enforcement actions

Weaken the prohibition on the use of force

Historically, these expanded security narratives have been used disproportionately against Global South states, reinforcing global hierarchies rather than collective security.

7. Re-situating Sovereignty in Global South Thought

In light of the reasons adduced by President Trump, sovereignty—through a Global South lens—must be understood as:

A legal norm under siege, not obsolete

A counter-hegemonic principle, protecting political diversity

A collective interest, not merely a national one

While Global South scholars do not deny the importance of human rights or accountability, they argue that justice divorced from equality becomes domination. Without multilateral, genuinely representative mechanisms, the capture of a sitting leader risks reproducing imperial patterns under the guise of legality.

8. Conclusion

From a Global South perspective, the proposed capture of Nicolás Maduro represents less a triumph of international justice than a crisis of legitimacy in international law itself. Sovereignty, though imperfect, remains one of the few legal defenses available to weaker states against coercive power. Until international law applies equally to all states and leaders, efforts to bypass sovereignty will be viewed not as moral progress, but as selective intervention embedded in global diplomacy.

Ambassador Valentine Opaluwa is a Peace and Conflict Scholar, Researcher, Author, Publisher and Executive Director
Pencraft Books
ANU Community Peacebuilding & Environmental Sustainability Initiative (ACPESI).

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