CICIVEN on the attempt by Venezuela's illegitimate government to escape the International Criminal Court

• The Chain of Usurpation prevents the denunciation of the Rome Statute from having any legal effect whatsoever, as it is tainted with absolute nullity.
• They ask Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN, and the UN Treaty Section to bear in mind Delcy Rodríguez’s lack of legitimacy, so that said denunciation has no legal effect.

The International Committee against Impunity in Venezuela (CICIVEN), in view of the announcement of the denunciation of the Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court (ICC), by the illegitimate authorities that govern Venezuela today, states that such action and its legal consequences are tainted with absolute nullity on account of the following facts:

1º.- Those who today claim to hold the representation of the Venezuelan State are persons who occupy usurped offices and, consequently, their acts are tainted with absolute nullity, as provided by Article 138 of the Constitution currently in force in the Nation.

2º.- Nicolás Maduro, a prisoner in a New York jail for narcoterrorism offenses, lost his legitimacy in 2019, when he took office as President as a consequence of the electoral fraud of 2018. This usurpation became even more evident when he refused to recognize the electoral victory of Edmundo González Urrutia on July 28, 2024.

3º.- Delcy Rodríguez was serving as Nicolás Maduro’s vice president at the time of his arrest on January 3 of this year, and then assumed the interim Presidency of the country, by express order of the government of the United States of America.
However, even assuming, without conceding, that she were recognized as having some legitimacy as interim President, she lost it once more than 6 months had passed since the extraction of Nicolás Maduro without presidential elections having been called, as provided by Article 234 of the Venezuelan Constitution, leaving her acts tainted with absolute nullity and creating a power vacuum, which is filled by the manifest intervention of the United States of America, which affects the constitutional normality of the Venezuelan State.

4º.- This chain of usurpations prevents the announced, null and void denunciation of the Rome Statute from having any legal validity whatsoever; on the contrary, it only reveals the intention of those responsible for the crimes against humanity committed in Venezuela over the last two decades to try to evade the action of international justice; those crimes are not subject to statutes of limitations and no immunity whatsoever can be invoked against them; they are currently being investigated at the ICC.

5º.- CICIVEN asks the responsible UN authorities to review the appropriateness of said request, both Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General, in his capacity as depositary of the Statute, and the Treaty Section; we ask them to bear in mind the foregoing, so that this denunciation has no effect.

6º.- Likewise, CICIVEN states that, in the event that said null and void denunciation is accepted, it would only take effect one year after it was submitted, and it will have no effect on the facts and crimes currently being investigated at the ICC.
Nor will it have any effect on the crimes against humanity committed by Delcy Rodríguez and the members of the illegitimate interim government in connection with the two earthquakes that occurred in Venezuela on July 24, nor on those that are being committed and may continue to be committed until the withdrawal is formalized, should that ever happen.

7º.- The thread of constitutionality in Venezuela is in the hands of Edmundo González Urrutia, the President elected by the sovereign will of Venezuelans on July 28, 2024, when María Corina Machado managed to show the International Community who had won in Venezuela. The Venezuelan people, who continue to be trampled, persecuted, and especially punished through crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC, with hundreds of political prisoners in their prisons, keep their dignity intact; the victims and their families will assert before the world what justice demands.

Miami, July 31, 2026

The board of directors of CICIVEN, Wilfredo Castro, Luis Corona, José Emilio Castellanos, Juan José Monsant, Rosario Orellana, José Pinto, Víctor Rodríguez Cedeño and

William Cárdenas, President
Paciano Padrón, Vice President
Walter Márquez, Director General

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