12:50 GMT
Katie Williams
Live reporter
I’ve just been speaking with Marc Weller, director of the international law programme at the think tank Chatham House.
I asked him about the legality of Maduro’s extraction, and whether the US can legally “run” Venezuela – a word used by Donald Trump yesterday.
Weller says the US position is that it can claim jurisdiction over drugs trafficking and apply criminal law, even if the act is committed by a foreigner abroad.
The question is whether this has been “tainted” by how Maduro was taken, he says, describing yesterday’s operation as an “armed invasion”.
The position of the US is that it doesn’t matter how they get the suspect into court, he says, even if it is done through “internationally unlawful means”, such as “abduction from a foreign jurisdiction”.
The international position is different.
In international law, there is “no legal justification for use of force”, either to “apprehend a drug suspect” or to “advance democracy in Venezuela”, Weller says. The only available justification would be a UN mandate, which was not given, or self defence, he adds.
Meanwhile, Weller calls the proposal that the US will run Venezuela “very odd”. It is “difficult to find a legal label that describes that arrangement,” he says. For now, it does not seem to refer to armed occupation, but rather to “ongoing political interference” backed by the “threat of further US force”, he says.