The Democratic Transition in Venezuela is an Inter-American Matter

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The Venezuelan crisis cannot be understood solely as an internal political crisis, an electoral dispute, or a humanitarian emergency. It is, above all, a comprehensive crisis of democratic constitutionalism within the inter-American space. Its severity lies in what it reveals about the consequences of the breakdown of the triad formed by the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. Venezuela confirms that when one of these elements collapses, it drags the others down with it.

For this reason, discussing a transition in Venezuela cannot be reduced to discussing a change in the executive branch or a call for elections, even though these are crucial steps toward transition. A democratic transition requires rebuilding the institutional, political, and social conditions that make the functioning of this triad possible. This task does not concern Venezuela alone: it is also an inter-American matter. Its diagnosis, its consequences, and its remedies have all been extensively addressed within the framework of the Inter-American Human Rights System.

The Inter-American Diagnosis: It All Began with the Erosion of the Rule of Law

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has argued in its numerous reports on Venezuela that the Venezuelan crisis began with the progressive erosion of the rule of law. Before the democratic rupture became fully evident, there were already profound signs of institutional weakening: loss of judicial independence, the provisional status of judges and prosecutors, pressure on oversight bodies, and the selective use of criminal law against human rights defenders, journalists, opposition members, and political dissidents.

This point is fundamental. Without independent judges, the law ceases to be a limit on power and becomes an instrument of power instead. The norms continue to exist, the courts continue to function, and decisions retain a legal form. But legality is emptied of democratic meaning when the institutions responsible for overseeing the executive branch come to act as its instruments.

For this reason, the Venezuelan crisis did not begin merely with a contested election or an open conflict between government and opposition. It began earlier, with the deterioration of the institutional guarantees that make it possible to demand constitutional compliance and protect rights. When judges cannot decide independently and criminal law is used as a means of intimidation, the rule of law loses its essential function: subjecting power to rules.

From Judicial Deterioration to Democratic Hollowing-Out

The weakening of the rule of law paved the way for a second rupture: the hollowing-out of democracy. One of the clearest episodes was the practical annulment of the powers of the National Assembly elected in 2015. Through the figure of “contempt” (desacato), the Supreme Tribunal of Justice neutralized the popularly elected representative body and blocked its capacity to exercise legislative and political oversight functions.

This episode shows that the problem was not merely judicial. It was profoundly democratic. If a citizen majority elects a parliament, but that parliament is stripped of its powers by a tribunal aligned with the executive, the vote loses its efficacy. Citizens vote, but their decision does not transform the exercise of power.

Democracy, then, does not necessarily disappear overnight. It can persist on the surface, with elections, parties, institutions, and constitutional discourse intact. But it becomes hollow when genuine competition, separation of powers, political pluralism, and the effective possibility of alternation in power cease to exist. In Venezuela, the concentration of power did not occur outside the law, but often through it.

The Human Rights Crisis as a Structural Form of Government

The rupture of the rule of law and of democracy gave rise to a massive human rights crisis. Repression ceased to be a situational response to specific conflicts and became a structural form of government. Institutional co-optation enabled the expansion of practices such as arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, persecution of opposition members, criminalization of human rights defenders, and the use of military tribunals against civilians.

However, the human rights crisis in Venezuela is not limited to direct repression. It is also expressed in the deterioration of material living conditions. The collapse of public services, shortages, restricted access to medicines, the precarization of healthcare, and food insecurity all demonstrate that institutional breakdown has daily consequences for the lives of millions of people.

In this context, Venezuelan migration must also be understood as a form of forced migration and as a survival strategy. Millions of people have left the country not solely for economic reasons, but due to a combination of violence, persecution, institutional collapse, and the profound deterioration of basic social rights. The regional response, therefore, cannot rely solely on ordinary migration policy criteria. It must proceed from the recognition that Venezuelan human mobility is linked to a regional human rights crisis.

The Most Recent Phase: Fear, Control, and the Closing of Civic Space

The most recent phase deepens the relationship between the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. Following the 2024 electoral cycle and the presidential inauguration of January 2025, the Venezuelan situation has shown a further consolidation of authoritarian closure. Political repression, surveillance, arbitrary detentions, raids conducted without judicial orders, passport cancellations, and the persecution of critical voices have further closed civic space.

What is at stake is not merely who governs, but how governance is exercised. A regime that uses fear to prevent political participation destroys the minimal conditions of democratic citizenship. When people cannot express themselves, organize, protest, vote freely, or turn to independent judges, rights cease to be enforceable guarantees and become precarious concessions instead.

This point is central to any consideration of transition. A democratic transition cannot consist merely of replacing authorities. It must dismantle the structures that made persecution, impunity, and the concentration of power possible. It must rebuild the justice system, restore guarantees for the opposition, protect defenders and journalists, ensure authentic electoral conditions, and address the social consequences of a prolonged crisis.

Why the Venezuelan Transition Is an Inter-American Matter

The transition in Venezuela is an inter-American matter for three reasons.

The first is normative. The inter-American human rights system was built on the premise that democracy, the rule of law, and human rights are interdependent. The OAS Charter, the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the American Convention on Human Rights, and the practice of the Inter-American Commission and Court all affirm that the protection of rights cannot be separated from the institutional conditions that make constitutional democracy possible.

The second reason is material. The Venezuelan crisis has produced regional effects: forced migration, pressure on healthcare, education, and labor systems in receiving countries, the expansion of transnational protection networks, and new challenges for regional integration. Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, and other states are not mere external observers. Their institutions, communities, and public policies have been directly affected by the crisis.

The third reason is political. If the democratic collapse of one country becomes normalized, the entire region is weakened. Tolerance toward the concentration of power, the persecution of opposition members, or the destruction of judicial independence sends a dangerous message: that inter-American democratic commitments are negotiable. A firm, coordinated, rights-based regional response can, by contrast, help reestablish the notion that democracy is not merely an internal matter for states, but a shared condition of the inter-American order.

Rebuilding the Triad

Venezuela demonstrates that democracy does not survive without the rule of law, that human rights cannot be protected without democracy, and that the rule of law loses its meaning when disconnected from human dignity. The crisis is explained precisely by the rupture of this triad: the loss of institutional checks enabled the concentration of power; the concentration of power hollowed out democracy; and democratic hollowing-out opened the way to systematic human rights violations.

For this reason, the Venezuelan transition must be conceived as a simultaneous reconstruction. It is not enough to organize elections if institutional guarantees do not exist. It is not enough to release political prisoners if the structures of persecution persist. It is not enough to address the humanitarian emergency if the democratic conditions that would prevent its recurrence are not restored.

The transition in Venezuela is an inter-American matter because it calls into question the very meaning of regional democratic constitutionalism. It reminds us that human rights do not exist in a vacuum: they depend on institutions, checks and balances, independent judges, citizen participation, and effective guarantees against the abuse of power. For this reason, the Venezuelan transition is not merely a national task. It is a democratic responsibility of the entire region.