US-Venezuela tensions and International Law

The US-Venezuela tensions occupy a central place in contemporary debates on international law because they sit at the intersection of sanctions law, sovereignty, human rights protection, and the prohibition of the use of force. The legal significance of this relationship does not arise merely from political disagreement, but from the sustained deployment of coercive economic measures, contested claims of legitimacy, and, more recently, the re-emergence of force-related narratives framed around security and counter-narcotics objectives. Together, these elements test the resilience of core principles of the international legal order established after 1945.

At the heart of US-Venezuela tensions lies a structural clash between unilateral power and multilateral legal constraint. The United States has relied heavily on sanctions, financial restrictions, and diplomatic isolation as instruments of pressure against Venezuelan authorities, presenting these measures as responses to democratic erosion, corruption, and human rights violations. Venezuela, in turn, has consistently characterized such actions as unlawful intervention, collective punishment, and violations of its sovereign equality. This reciprocal framing transforms a bilateral dispute into a broader legal controversy with systemic implications for international law.

The importance of US-Venezuela tensions is amplified by their human consequences. Economic measures directed at state institutions inevitably spill over into civilian life, raising complex questions about the extraterritorial reach of state obligations, the protection of economic and social rights, and the threshold at which coercive measures become incompatible with fundamental humanitarian standards. These questions are not abstract. They affect migration flows across the Americas, regional stability, and the credibility of international human rights norms in situations where political objectives and civilian welfare collide.

Finally, recent discussions surrounding military operations, maritime interdictions, and enforcement actions linked to narcotics trafficking introduce an additional layer of legal gravity. Claims grounded in self-defense, security cooperation, or law enforcement blur traditional boundaries between peace and force, demanding careful scrutiny under the UN Charter and customary international law. For these reasons, US-Venezuela tensions provide a uniquely instructive case study for assessing how international law operates under sustained political pressure, and where its limits are most visibly exposed.

Factual and political background of US-Venezuela tensions

The factual and political background of the current dispute is rooted in Venezuela’s prolonged institutional crisis and the progressive hardening of United States policy responses. Over the past two decades, Venezuela has experienced a marked concentration of executive power, erosion of judicial independence, and repeated challenges to electoral credibility. These developments have been accompanied by severe economic contraction, hyperinflation, and the collapse of basic public services, creating one of the largest displacement crises in the Western Hemisphere. The United States has framed its actions as a response to these internal dynamics, while Venezuela has treated them as externally driven attempts to reshape its political order.

US policy toward Venezuela shifted decisively after the mid-2010s, moving from targeted sanctions against individual officials to broader sectoral measures affecting finance, energy, and state-owned enterprises. The oil sector, historically the backbone of the Venezuelan economy, became a central focus, as restrictions on production, export, and international transactions significantly reduced state revenue. These measures were accompanied by diplomatic efforts to isolate Venezuelan authorities and to recognize alternative political actors as legitimate representatives of the state. In legal terms, this combination of economic pressure and recognition policy blurred the boundary between lawful diplomatic leverage and contested intervention.

Venezuela’s response has been equally political and legal. Successive governments have rejected the legitimacy of unilateral sanctions, describing them as coercive measures designed to force political change through economic deprivation. Official discourse has emphasized sovereignty, non-intervention, and the right to self-determination, positioning Venezuela as a victim of economic warfare rather than as a state subject to lawful international accountability. This framing has been reinforced by alliances with non-Western powers and by appeals to multilateral forums, where Venezuela has sought to internationalize the dispute and challenge the normative authority of unilateral enforcement.

The political context has remained fluid rather than static. Periods of intensified pressure have alternated with limited engagement, temporary sanctions relief, and negotiations linked to electoral commitments or humanitarian access. These shifts reveal that US-Venezuela tensions are not driven by a single legal claim or political event, but by an evolving strategic relationship shaped by domestic politics in both states, regional migration pressures, and global energy considerations. Understanding this background is essential, as it explains why legal arguments surrounding sanctions, recognition, and the use of force have become increasingly central rather than peripheral to the dispute.

Core legal framework: sovereignty, non-intervention, jurisdiction, and state responsibility

The legal analysis of US-Venezuela tensions is anchored in foundational principles of public international law, beginning with sovereignty and the prohibition of intervention in the internal affairs of states. Sovereignty, understood as the exclusive authority of a state over its territory and political system, remains a cornerstone of the international legal order. Closely linked to this concept is the principle of non-intervention, which prohibits states from using coercive measures to influence the political, economic, or social choices of another state. In the context of US-Venezuela tensions, the central question is not the existence of political disagreement, but whether external measures amount to impermissible coercion aimed at compelling a change in government or policy orientation.

Jurisdiction provides a second critical lens through which the dispute must be assessed. Under international law, states may exercise jurisdiction primarily on territorial and nationality bases, with more limited acceptance of protective or universal jurisdiction in narrowly defined circumstances. Many measures adopted in the Venezuelan context operate beyond these traditional limits, particularly when they regulate the conduct of third-state actors or foreign companies engaging in transactions with Venezuela. This extraterritorial dimension raises concerns about the legality of extending domestic regulatory authority into the sovereign space of other states, especially when such extensions produce indirect but foreseeable effects on Venezuela’s economy and population.

State responsibility offers the doctrinal structure for evaluating the legality of coercive measures once a potential breach of international obligations is identified. A state that commits an internationally wrongful act may face countermeasures by an injured state, but international law subjects such countermeasures to strict conditions. They must be taken in response to a prior wrongful act, aim at inducing compliance rather than punishment, remain proportionate, and respect obligations of a humanitarian character. In the case of US-Venezuela tensions, the classification of sanctions as lawful countermeasures depends on whether the United States can demonstrate a direct legal injury and adherence to these constraints, rather than relying on broad claims of moral or political justification.

Taken together, sovereignty, jurisdiction, and state responsibility form an integrated framework for assessing the legality of contemporary pressure strategies. They shift the analysis away from political narratives and toward concrete legal thresholds, such as coercion, proportionality, and the protection of fundamental rights. This framework is essential for distinguishing between lawful international responses to serious violations and measures that risk undermining the very legal order they purport to defend.

Sanctions architecture and legality: UN Security Council vs unilateral measures

Sanctions occupy a central position in US-Venezuela tensions, making it necessary to distinguish clearly between measures authorized by the United Nations Security Council and those imposed unilaterally by individual states. Under the UN Charter, the Security Council holds primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security and is the only body empowered to adopt binding sanctions with universal legal effect. Sanctions adopted within this framework derive their legitimacy from collective decision-making and are embedded in a system designed to balance enforcement with international oversight. In the Venezuelan case, no comprehensive Security Council sanctions regime has been established, largely due to geopolitical divisions among permanent members, leaving unilateral measures as the dominant enforcement tool.

Unilateral sanctions, by contrast, exist in a more contested legal space. International law does not categorically prohibit all unilateral restrictive measures, but their legality depends on their purpose, scope, and effects. States imposing such measures often characterize them as lawful expressions of sovereignty or as countermeasures responding to internationally wrongful acts. In the context of US-Venezuela tensions, sanctions have been justified on grounds including democratic governance, anti-corruption, and human rights protection. These objectives, however, do not automatically confer legality. International law evaluates sanctions based on compliance with principles such as proportionality, non-discrimination, and respect for humanitarian obligations, rather than on the moral weight of the stated aims.

A defining feature of the Venezuelan sanctions regime is its sectoral breadth, particularly in relation to finance and energy. Restrictions on state-owned enterprises and international transactions extend well beyond individual officials and directly affect the state’s capacity to generate revenue. While proponents argue that such measures are designed to pressure political elites, their systemic nature raises questions about collective impact and indirect harm to civilians. This has intensified legal debate over the boundary between targeted pressure and measures that resemble economic coercion, inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention.

The absence of Security Council authorization also limits the ability of unilateral sanctions to claim a collective enforcement rationale. Without multilateral backing, the burden of legal justification rests entirely on the imposing state. In US-Venezuela tensions, this has shifted scrutiny toward the cumulative effects of sanctions and their compatibility with international legal standards. The resulting controversy highlights a broader structural issue: when collective mechanisms fail to act, states increasingly turn to unilateral tools that test the limits of legality and challenge the coherence of the international sanctions architecture.

Extraterritoriality and “secondary sanctions”: the hardest legal problem

Extraterritoriality lies at the most legally contentious core of US-Venezuela tensions, particularly through the use of so-called secondary sanctions. Unlike primary sanctions, which regulate the conduct of a state’s own nationals and entities, secondary sanctions seek to influence the behavior of third-state actors by threatening exclusion from the sanctioning state’s markets or financial system. This technique dramatically expands the reach of domestic law into the international sphere and raises fundamental questions about jurisdiction, sovereignty, and lawful regulatory authority.

From the perspective of the sanctioning state, secondary sanctions are often defended as an exercise of economic sovereignty. The argument rests on the idea that access to domestic markets, currency systems, or financial infrastructure is not a right but a privilege, and that conditions may be attached to such access. Applied to US-Venezuela tensions, this rationale frames secondary sanctions as indirect regulation rather than direct interference, asserting that third parties remain formally free to trade with Venezuela if they accept the economic consequences imposed by US law.

International legal doctrine, however, offers a more critical assessment. Traditional bases of jurisdiction—territoriality, nationality, and the protective principle—do not easily justify measures that compel foreign companies and banks to alter conduct occurring entirely outside the sanctioning state’s territory. When secondary sanctions are designed to disrupt a target state’s economy by constraining its external relations, they risk crossing the line from permissible regulation into unlawful coercion. This risk is heightened when the objective is political transformation rather than compliance with a specific legal obligation.

The Venezuelan context illustrates these tensions with particular clarity. Secondary sanctions affecting energy trading, shipping, insurance, and financial clearing have produced widespread overcompliance, as private actors disengage to avoid legal exposure. This phenomenon magnifies the real-world impact of sanctions beyond their formal scope and complicates claims of proportionality. The legal problem is not limited to the relationship between the United States and Venezuela, but extends to third states whose sovereign economic choices are effectively constrained by the threat of enforcement.

As a result, secondary sanctions represent the most fragile element of the current sanctions regime under international law. They expose a gap between the economic power of certain states and the consent-based foundations of the international legal system. In the case of US-Venezuela tensions, this gap underscores a broader systemic challenge: how to reconcile globalized financial influence with legal principles that were designed to limit jurisdictional overreach and protect sovereign equality.

Human rights and humanitarian impacts: when pressure becomes unlawful harm

Human rights considerations occupy a decisive place in the legal assessment of US-Venezuela tensions, particularly where economic pressure intersects with civilian welfare. International human rights law does not prohibit all forms of economic restriction, but it does impose limits on state conduct when measures foreseeably undermine the enjoyment of fundamental rights. The legal challenge lies in determining when sanctions, initially framed as political or legal tools, generate effects that cross the threshold into unlawful harm.

At the normative level, states remain bound by obligations to respect and protect basic human rights, including rights to health, food, and an adequate standard of living. While these obligations are traditionally understood in a territorial sense, there is growing recognition that states may bear responsibility for extraterritorial effects of their actions when those effects are foreseeable and avoidable. In the context of US-Venezuela tensions, the scale and duration of economic restrictions raise questions about due diligence in sanctions design, particularly in relation to humanitarian exemptions and licensing mechanisms intended to safeguard civilian needs.

The Venezuelan case also illustrates the difficulty of separating internal governance failures from external pressure. Economic mismanagement, corruption, and institutional collapse predated many of the most restrictive measures. However, this does not eliminate the legal responsibility to assess how sanctions interact with existing vulnerabilities. International legal analysis focuses less on assigning exclusive blame and more on evaluating whether the cumulative impact of external measures is disproportionate in light of their stated objectives. When sanctions significantly impair access to essential goods or public services, they invite scrutiny under the principle that human suffering must not be instrumentalized as a means of political coercion.

A further legal concern arises from the effectiveness and clarity of humanitarian safeguards. Broad sanctions regimes often rely on exemptions to protect medical supplies, food, and humanitarian operations. In practice, however, complex compliance requirements and fear of penalties can lead to overcompliance by financial institutions and suppliers, restricting lawful humanitarian activity. In US-Venezuela tensions, this gap between formal exemptions and practical access has become a focal point of legal criticism, as it suggests a failure to ensure that protective mechanisms operate effectively.

Ultimately, the human rights dimension reframes the debate on sanctions legality. The question is not simply whether pressure is permissible, but whether it remains compatible with non-derogable principles of human dignity and proportionality. When economic measures foreseeably and persistently exacerbate humanitarian conditions without clear evidence of achieving lawful aims, they risk transforming political pressure into unlawful harm under international law.

Use of force, self-defense, and counter-narcotics operations

The most legally sensitive dimension of US-Venezuela tensions emerges where economic coercion intersects with the potential or actual use of force. International law draws a sharp distinction between political pressure and military action, placing the latter under the strict constraints of the United Nations Charter. Article 2(4) establishes a general prohibition on the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, allowing only narrow exceptions grounded in Security Council authorization or self-defense under Article 51.

Claims of self-defense in the Venezuelan context have primarily been articulated through counter-narcotics and security narratives. These arguments suggest that transnational criminal activity, including drug trafficking, constitutes a threat justifying robust enforcement measures beyond ordinary law enforcement cooperation. From an international legal perspective, this reasoning is highly controversial. Customary international law limits self-defense to situations involving an armed attack attributable to a state or, in more contested circumstances, to non-state actors operating from another state’s territory where that state is unwilling or unable to act. Drug trafficking, even when organized and violent, does not automatically meet the legal threshold of an armed attack capable of triggering the right of self-defense.

This distinction has direct implications for maritime interdictions and reported enforcement actions linked to Venezuelan territory or nationals. Under the law of the sea, enforcement against vessels on the high seas is tightly regulated. Outside of narrowly defined exceptions, such as piracy or explicit flag-state consent, states lack general authority to board or seize foreign vessels. Framing counter-narcotics operations as security measures does not displace these rules. When enforcement actions resemble coercive military operations rather than cooperative law enforcement, they risk violating both the prohibition on the use of force and the principle of sovereign equality.

Another layer of complexity arises from the blurred boundary between law enforcement and armed conflict. If force were to be used in a sustained or organized manner, legal classification becomes crucial. Treating such operations as part of an armed conflict would engage international humanitarian law, with its distinct rules on targeting, proportionality, and accountability. Conversely, characterizing them as law enforcement actions keeps them within a human rights framework that emphasizes necessity, proportionality, and judicial oversight. In the context of US-Venezuela tensions, ambiguity in classification increases legal uncertainty and heightens the risk of unlawful escalation.

Ultimately, the use of force dimension underscores the limits of unilateral enforcement in international law. Counter-narcotics objectives, however legitimate in policy terms, do not create a general license to bypass Charter constraints. Any expansion of force-based measures without a clear legal grounding threatens to transform a political and economic dispute into a direct challenge to the foundational norms governing peace and security in the international system.

Recognition, legitimacy, and asset control: international legal effects

Recognition and legitimacy disputes form a crucial legal layer of US-Venezuela tensions, particularly in relation to control over state assets and international representation. International law traditionally distinguishes between recognition of states, which is generally declaratory, and recognition of governments, which remains a discretionary political act with significant legal consequences. In situations of contested authority, external recognition can determine which actors are treated as capable of representing the state, entering into binding agreements, and exercising control over public property abroad.

In the Venezuelan context, the decision by certain states to recognize alternative political authorities as legitimate representatives of the Venezuelan people generated far-reaching legal effects without altering Venezuela’s status as a sovereign state. This selective recognition influenced diplomatic relations, access to international forums, and the treatment of Venezuelan state assets held overseas. Courts and administrative bodies in third states were compelled to decide which entity possessed legal standing to manage central bank reserves, state-owned enterprises, and other public assets, transforming political recognition into concrete legal disputes.

Asset control illustrates how recognition operates as a form of indirect coercion. Freezing or reallocating state assets is often justified as a protective or custodial measure pending political resolution. Under international law, however, state property enjoys protection based on principles of sovereign immunity and non-interference. When recognition decisions are used to deprive an incumbent government of effective control over national assets, they raise questions about compatibility with these principles, especially in the absence of multilateral authorization or judicial determination of illegitimacy.

Legitimacy claims also intersect with responsibility and accountability. Recognizing an alternative authority does not automatically transfer international obligations, nor does it absolve the recognizing state from respecting the rights of the population as a whole. In the broader framework of US and Venezuela tensions, recognition policies demonstrate how legal effects can flow from political judgments, reshaping economic and diplomatic realities while remaining formally distinct from the use of force. This dynamic highlights the powerful and potentially destabilizing role that recognition plays in contemporary international law disputes.

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Regional system and “collective defense of democracy” narratives

Regional institutions and political narratives have played a significant role in shaping US-Venezuela tensions, particularly through appeals to a collective defense of democracy in the Americas. The Organization of American States has served as the primary forum for articulating concerns about democratic governance, electoral integrity, and human rights in Venezuela. While these concerns have been widely shared among certain regional actors, their translation into coercive measures has exposed the limits of regional legal authority.

The inter-American system recognizes democracy and human rights as shared values, yet it does not confer a general mandate for enforcement through economic or political coercion. Instruments designed to protect democratic order emphasize dialogue, monitoring, and collective decision-making rather than unilateral pressure. In legal terms, this distinction matters because it separates political condemnation from lawful authorization to intervene in a member state’s internal affairs. In the Venezuelan case, regional consensus has been fragmented, preventing the emergence of a unified legal basis for collective sanctions or enforcement.

The narrative of democratic defense has nonetheless been used to legitimize external pressure strategies. Supporters argue that a severe democratic breakdown justifies exceptional responses to protect regional stability and prevent humanitarian spillover. Critics counter that invoking democracy as a legal rationale risks eroding the principle of sovereign equality and transforming political preferences into enforcement norms. Within US-Venezuela tensions, this debate reflects a deeper uncertainty about whether democracy functions as a binding legal obligation or as an aspirational principle lacking direct enforcement mechanisms under international law.

Regional polarization further complicates the legal landscape. Divergent positions among Latin American states have limited the capacity of regional institutions to act as neutral arbiters, while migration pressures and security concerns have incentivized pragmatic engagement over principled alignment. As a result, the regional system has often reinforced political narratives rather than resolving legal disputes. This outcome underscores a central tension: collective defense of democracy remains a powerful political idea, but without a clear legal grounding, it struggles to provide a stable or lawful framework for addressing protracted crises such as that between the United States and Venezuela.

Policy synthesis and legal options to de-escalate US and Venezuela tensions

De-escalation requires a strategy that is legally defensible, operationally realistic, and measurable. The main legal problem is not the existence of pressure, but pressure that looks like (i) coercive interference in political self-determination, (ii) jurisdictional overreach through secondary sanctions, or (iii) escalation into force without a UN Charter basis. The options below prioritize tools that reduce legal fragility while preserving leverage.

A. Redesign sanctions to reduce legal vulnerability and civilian harm

Move further toward precision targeting

• Prioritize individual designations, corruption-related networks, and clearly evidenced illicit finance channels over broad sectoral restraints.

• Legal logic: reduces the appearance of economic coercion against the population and strengthens proportionality arguments.

Harden humanitarian functionality, not only exemptions

• Exemptions are not enough if banks and suppliers still refuse to process lawful trade.

• Build operational clarity: standardized comfort letters, fast-track humanitarian licensing, pre-approved channels for medicine, food, spare parts for critical infrastructure, and UN/NGO procurement.

• Legal logic: demonstrates due diligence to prevent foreseeable, avoidable harm.

Introduce predictable “off-ramps” with compliance triggers

• Replace open-ended pressure with phased relief tied to verifiable benchmarks (electoral conditions, political prisoner releases, independent observation, humanitarian access).

• Legal logic: supports the claim that measures aim to induce compliance, not punishment.

B. Contain extraterritoriality: reduce secondary-sanctions spillover

Narrow secondary sanctions to high-risk categories

• Limit enforcement to specific conduct with strong jurisdictional connections (US persons, US dollar clearing, US territory nexus) and to clearly defined prohibited services, enabling evasion.

• Legal logic: lowers jurisdictional overreach arguments and reduces third-state sovereignty friction.

Safe-harbor compliance regimes for third parties

• Publish objective criteria for permissible trade and create a protected channel for non-US actors that meet transparency, auditing, and anti-diversion standards.

• Practical effect: reduces overcompliance and de-risking, improving humanitarian and legitimate commercial flows.

C. Multilateralize the settlement architecture

Regional and multilateral mediation package

• Anchor commitments in a jointly monitored framework involving credible regional states and multilateral bodies.

• Legal logic: shifts the posture away from unilateral coercion and toward collective, consent-based dispute management.

Conditional economic stabilization mechanism

• Use escrow-style arrangements or monitored accounts for certain revenue streams dedicated to humanitarian goods, infrastructure maintenance, and supervised social spending.

• Legal logic: reduces the argument that economic measures function as collective punishment while addressing corruption diversion risks.

D. Keep force off the table unless the Charter standard is met

Adopt explicit legal guardrails against force escalation

• Publicly affirm that no kinetic action will be taken absent a clear Charter basis (Security Council authorization or a narrow, evidence-based self-defense claim meeting necessity and proportionality).

• Operationally: avoid blurred “law enforcement” actions that resemble force against another state.

  
  

Maritime and counter-narcotics cooperation via consent-based channels

• Focus on cooperation agreements, information sharing, joint operations with flag-state consent, and capacity building.

• Legal logic: aligns with law-of-the-sea constraints and reduces escalation risk.

E. Define success metrics and stop pretending “pressure” is a strategy by itself

De-escalation fails when goals are vague (e.g., “restore democracy”) and tools are blunt. A credible approach requires a narrow set of measurable outcomes tied to reversible measures.

Table: De-escalation options, legal logic, and indicators

Option	Core legal logic	Key risk if mishandled	Practical indicator of progress
Precision targeting over broad sector sanctions	Proportionality; less coercion against the population	Networks adapt; weak evidence undermines legitimacy	Fewer humanitarian transaction denials; targeted enforcement outcomes
Humanitarian “functionality” package	Due diligence to prevent foreseeable harm	Overly complex compliance still chills trade	Increased medicine/food flows; fewer blocked payments
Phased relief with benchmarks	Inducement of compliance; reversibility	Benchmarks politicized or unverifiable	Independent verification of electoral and rights conditions
Narrowed secondary sanctions + safe harbors	Reduced extraterritorial overreach	Safe harbors exploited for evasion	Audited compliance participation; reduced overcompliance
Multilateral mediation + monitoring	Consent-based legitimacy; shared oversight	Fragmented coalition; monitoring weak	Public reporting by monitors; verified implementation steps
Consent-based maritime cooperation	Law-of-the-sea compliance; avoids unlawful force	Operations drift into coercion	Documented flag-state consent; transparent oversight
Explicit non-escalation guardrails	UN Charter compliance	Domestic political pressure for escalation	Absence of kinetic incidents; structured legal review processes

A legally resilient de-escalation strategy does not depend on maximal pressure. It depends on precision, reversibility, humanitarian operationalization, and multilateral credibility—paired with measurable benchmarks that allow both sides to justify compliance without surrendering core political narratives.

Conclusion

US and Venezuela tensions illustrate how sustained political conflict tests the structural limits of international law. The dispute has evolved beyond bilateral disagreement into a complex legal confrontation involving unilateral sanctions, extraterritorial jurisdiction, human rights obligations, recognition practices, and contested security claims. Each of these elements engages core norms of the international legal order, revealing the strain placed on sovereignty and non-intervention when powerful states rely on coercive tools outside collective frameworks.

The analysis demonstrates that the central legal risk does not stem from accountability objectives themselves, but from the methods used to pursue them. Broad economic measures, expansive secondary sanctions, and ambiguous enforcement actions weaken legal legitimacy when they resemble punishment or political subordination rather than inducement of lawful compliance. At the same time, prolonged institutional breakdown and rights violations inside Venezuela do not nullify the obligation of external actors to respect proportionality, humanitarian protection, and Charter-based limits on force.

US-Venezuela tensions, therefore, expose a wider systemic challenge: when multilateral mechanisms fail to act decisively, states increasingly turn to unilateral strategies that stretch international law without clearly replacing it. The durability of the international legal order depends on resisting this drift. De-escalation grounded in legal restraint, operational clarity, and multilateral engagement is not a concession of principle but a reaffirmation of law as the primary framework for managing political conflict.

References

1. Charter of the United Nations, 1945.

2. International Court of Justice, Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Merits, Judgment, 1986.

3. International Law Commission, Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, 2001.

4. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966.

5. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966.

6. United Nations General Assembly, World Summit Outcome Document, 2005.

7. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, reports on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, with specific reference to Venezuela.

8. Congressional Research Service, Venezuela: Background and U.S. Relations, updated reports and insights.

9. Congressional Research Service, U.S. Actions in Venezuela and International Law Implications, policy insight paper.

10. Center for Strategic and International Studies, analytical studies on sanctions effectiveness and Venezuela’s energy sector.

11. Council on Foreign Relations, background analyses on the Venezuelan political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.

12. Washington Office on Latin America, reports assessing the economic and humanitarian effects of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela.

13. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982.

14. Scholarly literature on sanctions, extraterritorial jurisdiction, and non-intervention in public international law journals.