Once done, it remains, by nature and fact, irreversible.  The precedent of indicting and abducting a serving head of state and his spouse, dropping them into the jurisdiction of another country to face criminal charges of inventive pedigree (narcoterrorism foremost among them), is the stuff of nightmares in international statecraft.  With the now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores facing such charges in New York, other world leaders are doubtless feeling a prevailing gloom.  Is there anything stopping US President Donald Trump from deploying the US military and law enforcement agents from nabbing the next sitting leader in the middle of the night?  Even more broadly, is there anything stopping other States from doing the same?

This is something that has excited discussion in various political quarters, notably in East and Southeast Asia.  Regarding the sullen, fleshy North Korean despot, Kim Jong-Un, the question is a pressing one.  Certain lawmakers certainly think so.  South Korean Rep. Lee Jun-seok, leader of the Reform Party, noted the brazen indifference the Trump administration had taken to renaming Maduro as a “leader of a transnational crime ring” instead of accepting him as a legitimate head of state.  “The logic applied to President Maduro could also be applied to the North Korean leader,” reasoned Lee on Facebook.  The US Justice Department had, after all, indicted North Korean hackers in 2021, using rather hyperbolic language in describing them as the “world’s leading bank robbers”.

The former mayor of Daegu, Hong Joon-pyo, was similarly

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