Lawless President Commits Aggression--Donald Trump in his utter disregard for international law violates fundamental norms of U.N. Charter and international law, again.
The U.S. could stumble into a war in Venezuela, and alienate countries in Latin America for a generation.
BACKGROUND
1)Julian E. Barnes and Tyler Pager,”Trump Administration Authorizes Covert C.I.A. Action in Venezuela; The development comes as the U.S. military is drawing up options for President Trump to consider, including possible strikes inside the country, New York Times, October 15, 2025.
2)Warren P. Strobel, John Hudson, and Karen DeYoung”Trump says he has authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela; License for the spy agency to conduct operations is the latest in a series of menacing U.S. steps against President Nicolás Maduro’s government.,” Washington Post, October 15, 2025 (7:21 p.m. EDT).
UPDATE
3)Charli Savage, ”U.S. Attacks More Boats as Tensions With Venezuela Rise: What’s Happened So Far; The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, while striking vessels that it says are trafficking drugs,” New York Times, October 21, 2025. .
Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin act as if the United Nations Charter and international law didn’t exist.
But they do, exist, with a force far beyond the power of any of these individuals to obliterate them.
International arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Netanyahu and Putin. After he leaves office, Trump may look forward to receiving warrants of his own.
His international crimes?
First, he appears to have committed the international crime of aggression— “crime against peace” as it was termed at the main Nuremberg Trial in 1945-1946)—by bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Second he appears to have been actively complicit in Israel’s war of aggression against Iran last summer.
Third, he appears to have been complicit in Israel’s massive crimes against humanity in Gaza, furnishing weapons to Israel which he knew or should have known would be used in Israel’s commission of crimes against humanity in the enclave.
Fourth, Trump appears to have committed war crimes by destroying fishing vessels in the Caribbean alleged to be smuggling drugs, in open defiance of international law and legal procedures for intercepting illegal drugs at sea.
Absent any valid legal justification for attacking and killing the crew members of these boats, his actions amounted to murder, pure and simple.
As he continues to attack boats alleged to be smuggling drugs in the Caribbean, and murdering their crew members, Trump now proclaims that he has authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out actions within the territory of Venezuela. Such actions would involve a violation of the sovereignty of Venezuela.
What is unusual is that the President is now publicly announcing his orders to carry out such actions, when for obvious reasons they are normally kept secret.
Moreover, President Trump is now openly threatening to launch military arracks against targets in Venezuela.
The threat itself is a violation of the prohibition of “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations,” contained in Article 2, paragraph 4 of the U.N. Charter.
Those familiar with history may recall Adolf Hitler’s takeovers of Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938 through the threat of the use of force, which in the latter case was unnecessary due to the capitulation and appeasement by Great Britain and France in the Munich Pact.
For now, Trump relies on sanctions and other threats against the ICC and its officials to avoid accountability.
But Trump will not always hold the power of the Presidency of the United States. Politics change, as Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines could readily attest. When his party had a falling out with the governing party which took over after him, the latter ordered his arrest and transfer to the ICC in the Hague, where he is currently imprisoned and awaiting trial for crimes against humanity.
History is not always kind to war criminals. It is entirely conceivable that in 20 years Netanyahu, Trump, and perhaps even Putin may share a cell block in The Hague.
The prohibition against the threat or use of force is the cornerstone of the United Nations and the current U.N. Charter-based international legal order.
Only a fool would bet against its future viability and in favor of an international anarchy that promises to bring only war and untold sorrow to mankind.
***
James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.
He studied the history of Nazi Germany at Stanford, and has studied and worked on human rights, judicial reform, and access to justice projects in many countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and in Afghanistan and Russia. At Harvard Law School, he taught a course on “Law, Human Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America”.
At the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, he worked on human rights cases involving forced disappearances, executions, and torture in a number of authoritarian countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Recent Books by the Author
James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024). Available on Amazon, and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.
James P. Rowles, Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump (2024). Available on Amazon,and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.
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