A Legal Analysis of the Crime of Aggression Under the Rome Statute: The Capture of the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by Us Forces Revisited

On 3 January 2026, United States special operations forces raided the Fort Tiuna military complex in Caracas and captured President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, flying him to New York to face narcotics and terrorism charges in federal court. The operation, mounted after months of naval blockade and military build-up under Operation Southern Spear, killed dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban personnel and drew immediate condemnation at an emergency United Nations Security Council session. This article asks whether the operation constitutes the crime of aggression under Article 8bis of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and, if so, whether that crime could actually be prosecuted. It argues that the substantive question is comparatively straightforward: an armed incursion by one state's forces into the territory of another, absent Security Council authorization or a plausible claim of self-defence against an armed attack by a state actor, falls squarely within Article 8bis's definition and is difficult to characterize as anything other than a manifest violation of the UN Charter. The genuine obstacle lies in jurisdiction. Because the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, Article 15bis (5) excludes the crime of aggression from the Court's reach regardless of Venezuela's own status as a State Party, and Security Council referral is foreclosed by the United States' veto. The article situates this jurisdictional design within the wider Kampala compromise, compares the episode with the 1989 capture of Manuel Noriega, and considers what, if anything, remains of accountability once both the international and domestic avenues are closed off.