The crisis in Venezuela remains deeply complex, combining humanitarian disaster, state-military entanglement with illicit markets, increased regional military posturing, and a host of legal and normative questions. To understand the current U.S. and multilateral approach toward Venezuela, three strands must be examined in tandem: military/security dynamics, state responsibility under international law, and the role of illicit trafficking versus formal origin.
Human Rights, Rule of Law, and Sovereign Obligations
Venezuela faces documented systemic abuses. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that the Venezuelan government continues to engage in actions constituting persecution as a crime against humanity. The human rights non-governmental organization Amnesty International described “violent repression” of protests, thousands of arbitrary arrests, torture allegations, and deteriorating detention conditions in the aftermath of the 2024 elections.
From the perspective of international law, key obligations include those under the International Criminal Court (ICC) system: Venezuela is under investigation by the ICC Prosecutor for possible crimes against humanity, given the findings of the UN’s Independent Fact-Finding Mission. Moreover, regional bodies such as the Inter‑American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) have issued reports finding serious violations in the electoral cycle that implicate political rights guarantees.
From a sovereign-responsibility standpoint, Venezuela retains a duty under customary international law and treaty frameworks to respect civil and political rights, ensure fair elections, and avoid complicity in gross abuses. The failure to allow meaningful political opposition, credible ballot processes, an independent judiciary, or protections for detainees erodes the state’s adherence to democratic rule obligations and can trigger international accountability mechanisms. For U.S. and multilateral policy, this means human-rights and rule-of-law concerns provide a strong normative basis for engagement beyond narrow drug-trafficking narratives.
Drug-Transit Role, Actual Flow Metrics, and Transit Versus Source
Much of the U.S. policy commentary on Venezuela emphasizes drug-trafficking concerns. Yet the available data suggest Venezuela plays mainly a transit or secondary role, more than a primary source for U.S.-bound cocaine or other major illicit flows.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) “World Drug Report 2025,” the main cocaine trafficking flows to North America originate in the Andean countries and are not primarily routed through Venezuelan ports. Supporting mapping visualizations show the main maritime and river routes of cocaine within the Americas for 2023-24, where Venezuela is marked as part of the route network but not as the dominant corridor. Most maritime shipments move westward through Pacific routes or northward through the Western Caribbean.
A 2024 brief by the European Parliamentary Research Service observed that the Andean region accounts for approximately 61 % of total global coca production (Colombia), followed by Peru (26 %) and Bolivia (13 %). A WOLA research note comparing 2012-17 found that cocaine flows through Venezuela rose from about 159 metric tons to 249 metric tons in that period (an increase of ~56 %, which corresponded with a surge of production in Colombia) while the Colombian flow rose more steeply (918 to 2,478 metric tons) in the same interval. When trafficking in Colombia fell slightly post-2017, Venezuela's flow also fell. While this indicates increasing transit via Venezuela, it remains well below the volumes originating in Colombia. A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessment in 2009 described Venezuela as a “major transit route” for cocaine out of Colombia. On synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, the latest U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) assessment identifies Mexican cartels using precursor chemicals from China as the principal source of U.S. overdoses; Venezuela is not identified as a major production center for fentanyl or methamphetamine destined for the United States.
In sum: while Venezuela serves as a route or transit zone for some illicit cocaine shipments, it is not the principal origin of U.S.-bound supply, and the synthetic-opioid crisis implicates other geographies more directly.
Why U.S. and International Pressure Focuses on Venezuela
Given the foregoing, why does Washington continue to engage strongly with Venezuela? Multiple overlapping motivations explain it. First, the country’s poor human-rights record and breakdown in democratic governance provide a policy justification rooted in international law and normative commitments to democratic stability, accountability, and human dignity. Second, Venezuela’s geography and institutional weakness make it a vulnerability point in the regional illicit-flow architecture: even a moderate volume of transit traffic complicates interdiction, maritime patrols, and regional cooperation, thus presenting a strategic security concern (even if not the principal source). Third, Venezuela remains an oil-rich nation (with the world’s largest proven reserves) and has engaged in foreign-policy alignment with Russia, Iran, and China, raising great-power calculation elements that render the country of interest to U.S. diplomacy beyond counternarcotics.
From the perspective of international law, U.S. sanctions and diplomatic pressure must still respect sovereignty, due process, and non-intervention in purely domestic affairs. However, when a state (or individuals within it) fail to adhere to international obligations (for instance, preventing trafficking or providing accountable governance) or commits gross human-rights abuses, the international community frequently invokes doctrines of responsibility to protect, interdiction cooperation, and sanctions according to multilateral frameworks. The logic of pressing Venezuela is therefore shaped by a blend of security, human-rights, migration, environmental, and energy-policy factors.
International-Law Dimensions
Three principal legal frameworks are relevant here. First, human-rights treaty law (e.g., the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR) and regional instruments (e.g., the American Convention on Human Rights) obligate states to protect the rights of detainees, ensure fair trial standards, and refrain from persecution on political grounds. Venezuela’s documented pattern of repression triggers these obligations. Second, transnational crime frameworks (e.g., the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, UNTOC) require states to cooperate in combating the trafficking of drugs, money laundering, and cross-border criminal networks. While Venezuela is not the major source of cocaine, its role as a transit means that non-cooperation or permissiveness raises cooperation obligations under UNTOC. Third, international criminal law provides for criminal responsibility of state or non-state actors when crimes against humanity, such as persecution or enforced disappearance, are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. The UN Fact-Finding Mission’s conclusion that such crimes may have been committed in Venezuela (including ethnic or political persecution) places the country within the purview of ICC-relevant investigations. The independent UN Mission found “reasonable grounds to believe crimes against humanity have been committed” in Venezuela. In response, President Nicolás Maduro has dismissed these findings as politically motivated and “entirely false,” calling the UN investigation a fabrication intended to justify foreign interference.
From the U.S. vantage, sanctions regimes must also navigate international-law constraints: the U.S. must tailor measures consistent with its treaty commitments, avoid arbitrary or discriminatory targeting, and incorporate due-process avenues such as channels for relief or registration of claims. On the multilateral stage, pressure via human rights bodies (e.g., the UN Human Rights Council) reflects the principle of multilateralism and collective responsibility. For example, the UN Human Rights Council extended its monitoring mission in Venezuela in 2024.
In addition, the mass emigration of Venezuelans implicates international refugee law principles (though Venezuela is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention in the usual sense): neighboring states and regional bodies are engaged in migration-management cooperation, which in turn influences comprehensive policy responses.
