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This past Monday, a shackled, jumpsuit-clad Nicholas Maduro disembarked from a military helicopter in Manhattan, flanked by federal marshals.

The leader of Venezuela had remained in a well-known federal facility in Brooklyn, before authorities moved him to a Manhattan federal building to confront criminal charges.

The top prosecutor has asserted Maduro was brought to the US to "stand trial".

But international law experts challenge the legality of the administration's operation, and argue the US may have violated global treaties governing the use of force. Under American law, however, the US's actions occupy a unclear legal territory that may nevertheless culminate in Maduro standing trial, despite the events that brought him there.

The US insists its actions were legally justified. The administration has accused Maduro of "narco-trafficking terrorism" and enabling the transport of "thousands of tonnes" of cocaine to the US.

"Every officer participating acted with utmost professionalism, decisively, and in complete adherence to US law and standard procedures," the Attorney General said in a statement.

Maduro has repeatedly refuted US allegations that he runs an criminal narcotics enterprise, and in the federal courthouse in New York on Monday he stated his plea of innocent.

International Law and Enforcement Concerns

While the accusations are related to drugs, the US pursuit of Maduro comes after years of censure of his leadership of Venezuela from the wider international community.

In 2020, UN inquiry officials said Maduro's government had carried out "egregious violations" amounting to international crimes - and that the president and other top officials were implicated. The US and some of its partners have also alleged Maduro of electoral fraud, and did not recognise him as the legitimate president.

Maduro's alleged ties with criminal syndicates are the centerpiece of this prosecution, yet the US tactics in putting him before a US judge to face these counts are also under scrutiny.

Conducting a military operation in Venezuela and taking Maduro out of the country under the cover of darkness was "entirely unlawful under the UN Charter," said a professor at a law school.

Experts highlighted a number of problems stemming from the US operation.

The United Nations Charter prohibits members from threatening or using force against other states. It allows for "military response to an actual assault" but that threat must be looming, professors said. The other allowance occurs when the UN Security Council authorizes such an action, which the US lacked before it acted in Venezuela.

International law would regard the narco-trafficking charges the US accuses against Maduro to be a police concern, experts say, not a act of war that might warrant one country to take covert force against another.

In public statements, the government has characterised the operation as, in the words of the foreign affairs chief, "essentially a criminal apprehension", rather than an act of war.

Precedent and US Jurisdictional Questions

Maduro has been indicted on illicit narcotics allegations in the US since 2020; the justice department has now issued a superseding - or revised - charging document against the South American president. The executive branch essentially says it is now enforcing it.

"The action was carried out to aid an ongoing criminal prosecution linked to massive drug smuggling and connected charges that have incited bloodshed, upended the area, and contributed directly to the drug crisis causing fatalities in the US," the Attorney General said in her statement.

But since the mission, several legal experts have said the US violated international law by removing Maduro out of Venezuela on its own.

"One nation cannot go into another foreign country and detain individuals," said an professor of global jurisprudence. "If the US wants to detain someone in another country, the correct procedure to do that is a formal request."

Even if an defendant is accused in America, "The United States has no legal standing to go around the world executing an arrest warrant in the jurisdiction of other sovereign states," she said.

Maduro's legal team in the Manhattan courtroom on Monday said they would contest the lawfulness of the US action which transported him from Caracas to New York.

There's also a persistent legal debate about whether presidents must follow the UN Charter. The US Constitution regards international agreements the country signs to be the "highest law in the nation".

But there's a notable precedent of a former executive arguing it did not have to follow the charter.

In 1989, the US government ousted Panama's de facto ruler Manuel Noriega and took him to the US to face narco-trafficking indictments.

An internal Justice Department memo from the time contended that the president had the legal authority to order the FBI to detain individuals who flouted US law, "even if those actions violate established global norms" - including the UN Charter.

The author of that opinion, William Barr, was appointed the US attorney general and issued the original 2020 indictment against Maduro.

However, the opinion's logic later came under scrutiny from jurists. US federal judges have not directly ruled on the matter.

Domestic Executive Authority and Legal Control

In the US, the matter of whether this action transgressed any federal regulations is complex.

The US Constitution gives Congress the power to commence hostilities, but makes the president in control of the military.

A 1970s statute called the War Powers Resolution establishes constraints on the president's power to use the military. It compels the president to notify Congress before committing US troops into foreign nations "to the greatest extent practicable," and report to Congress within 48 hours of initiating an operation.

The government withheld Congress a prior warning before the action in Venezuela "because it endangers the mission," a cabinet member said.

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