Civil Disobedience and the Rule of (International) Law

by Timothy Kirchoff

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Early in the morning of January 3, 2026, the US military launched an operation in Caracas, Venezuela, which succeeded in its objective of abducting Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, apparently to be tried on charges related to drug trafficking and narcoterrorism. As of now, it remains to be seen whether the American government has more evidence of Maduro’s guilt on these charges than they did for the various individuals who were killed without trial in airstrikes on small boats over the past several months.

Long before the extrajudicial killing of noncombatants turned into regime change, it was clear that the actions of the US military were undertaken with no regard for international law or Just War Theory. The American executive branch’s unilateral removal of Maduro, the official head of state of a foreign country, seemingly without prior consultation with either Congress or any international authority, is problematic in several ways that others have already explored.

It remains to be seen what shape Maduro’s trial might take, or whether the executive branch will accept censure from—or offer any meaningful reassurances to—Congress, international authorities such as the United Nations, or Venezuela’s own citizens or neighbors. It remains to be seen what explanation or compensation the current administration might make to the families of those killed in the recent operation. It also remains to be seen under what other circumstances our government is willing to enact similar abduction plans, whether in Venezuela or elsewhere.

The brazen lawlessness of this initial action, however, suggests that those responsible for all of the decisions behind US military actions in the Caribbean over the past several months do not ever intend to accept accountability for any breach of international law in any of these operations, much less for the deaths of innocent civilians that resulted from either the boat strikes or the strike on Caracas.

This lawless, might-makes-right attitude—I know no better way to describe the administration’s actions—contrasts with the tradition of civil disobedience, in which people who violate the law willingly accept the penalties associated with the law, with the goal of highlighting some greater injustice. 

The key American examples of civil disobedience are Henry David Thoreau’s refusal to pay a poll tax in protest against the Mexican-American war and the countless nonviolent actions in support of civil rights led or inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. This civil disobedience differs from peaceful and lawful demonstrations (e.g., the No Kings protests) in that the participants knowingly break laws and anticipate arrest—and the arrest itself is accepted in order to draw even more attention to the thing being protested.

On December 5, 2025, roughly 20 pro-life activists participated in a Rescue—a nonviolent blockade of a Planned Parenthood center—in Memphis, Tennessee, and were subsequently arrested. This action was framed by its participants as an act of civil disobedience. 

The participants in this action, like the participants in the 2020 protest that led to the arrest and imprisonment of Herb Geraghty, then the executive director of Rehumanize International, know that they are breaking the law and are prepared to accept the consequences of that choice. They are hopeful, if not confident, that in the long run their willingness to undergo suffering will be vindicated by a change in public attitudes and, ultimately, the law. The current administration’s decision to reduce FACE Act prosecutions may lessen the penalty the protestors will face in this instance, but it doesn’t eliminate the penalty or risk to the participants.

The “rule of law” does not merely mean that certain laws are enforced or obeyed, nor does it mean only that people who break the law are subject to its judgment. It means that if people think that the law is enabling or creating injustice, that it is possible to change the law to prevent those injustices from reoccurring. Civil disobedience is an extraordinary means of trying to influence your fellow citizens, but it is still an attempt to persuade people to change the law officially through more ordinary (and lawful) means.

Without evaluating whether any particular act of civil disobedience was justified, it is apparent that there is a difference between an activist who breaks the law with the goal of challenging that law and someone in a position of authority who breaks the law with no intention of ever being held accountable for their actions. To engage in civil disobedience is to show how strongly you believe that the law should be otherwise; to engage in lawlessness is just to say that no law ought to apply to you. 

Civil disobedience signals personal integrity and faith that your fellow citizens will see and acknowledge your sacrifice; lawlessness signals that you think you can act with impunity and confidence that your fellow citizens—or, rather, your subjects—cannot hold you accountable. The administration’s actions do not indicate that it is trying to make a good faith attempt to change international law for the better or set precedents for other nations to follow: it simply intends to expand American influence and access to natural resources. It is engaging in a power grab.

I can understand that there are circumstances in which it is better to seek forgiveness than ask permission, but if our government thinks it doesn’t need to seek either one, we are in a genuine moment of crisis.

If we as Americans do not demand that our elected representatives create new laws in response to this crisis, then we will have handed a victory-by-default to the theory of executive power that justified these actions in Venezuela. Moreover, if the international community does not respond to the arrest of a head of state by another power—no matter how elegantly orchestrated the abduction was—then whatever attempts the international community made to create order and accountability after the Second World War and again after the Cold War have truly failed.