The US has torn up the rulebook. But international laws might yet halt the rampage

Trump's actions might have set global precedents. But he could find unexpected obstacles in his path

- Philippe Sands

We live in a world ... that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” said White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller last week.

“These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time,” he added, swatting away concerns about the abduction of Nicolás Maduro and violations of Venezuelan independence and sovereignty as “legal niceties”.Assuming, as one probably should, that Miller speaks for President Donald Trump, the episode confirms the administration’s disdain for international rules. Trump has told us the only constraints to his actions will be “my own morality, my own mind”, not any rules of international law, including treaties ratified by the US Congress. This is a shredding of the one-page document on the future organisation of the world, written in 1941 by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, both of whom President Trump once said he was a fan.

The Atlantic charter proposed a new multilateral order premised on rules and institutions to prevent a recurrence of the horrors of the 1940s. The pair envisaged respect for sovereignty and self-determination, prohibitions on the use of force, rights for individuals and groups, and far-reaching multilateral arrangements to promote trade and economic liberalisation.

The document led to the UN charter, which prohibits actions of the kind that occurred last weekend in Venezuela. There is nothing unclear about its rules on sovereignty or the use of force, as Kemi Badenoch claimed last week, and we don’t need more facts to form a view as to whether or not the Maduro abduction was lawful under international law, as Keir Starmer suggested. The rules prohibit the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, allowing force in self-defence only if an armed attack occurs. Period.