« Veritas occultum revelat » Reflections on an Act of Contemporary Interference

This text examines a major act of foreign interference that occurred in 2026—the extraterritorial arrest of the Venezuelan president by the United States—to show how it exposes the erosion of the foundational principles of the contemporary international legal order. The author argues that this action violates several core norms of international law (territorial sovereignty, personal immunities of heads of state, and exclusive territorial jurisdiction) and reveals the fluctuating and selective normativity of a system long criticized for its fragmentation, limited effectiveness, and structural dependence on power politics. Through a comparative analysis of regional conceptions of sovereignty (Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America) and an in‑depth examination of the historical and doctrinal role of the United States, the article demonstrates that the post‑1945 order functions less as a universally binding legal framework than as a flexible structure shaped to a significant extent by American power. The recent events thus appear not as a rupture but as a stark revelation of an intrinsically asymmetrical and politically constructed international system.