Lawfare Archive: Russia’s Aggression Against Ukraine and the International Legal Order
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 December 2025
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From April 4, 2023: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tested the international legal order like never before. For many, the fact that a nuclear power and member of the U.N. Security Council would commit unveiled aggression against another state seemed like it might be the death knell of the international system as we know it.
But last week, in the annual Breyer Lecture on International Law at the Brookings Institution, Oona Hathaway, the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, argued that international law and institutions responded more robustly than many initially anticipated—and may yet emerge from the Ukraine conflict stronger than before.
In this episode, we are bringing you the audio of Professor Hathaway’s lecture, followed by a question and answer session with Constanze Stelzenmüller, the Director of the Center on the United States and Europe and the inaugural holder of the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations at the Brookings Institution. Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson then moderated a panel discussion that included Professor Hathaway, as well as Professor Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University Law Center; Karin Landgren, the Executive Director of Security Council Report; and Ambassador Martin Kimani, Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Isabella Royal, with an episode from the Lawfare for December 31st, 2025. |
| 0:17.2 | On December 20th, U.S. envoy Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner met with Russian envoy Kyril Dmitriev in Florida to discuss an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. |
| 0:26.6 | The next day, Whitkoff and Kushner met for talks with Ukrainian National Security Advisor Rustim Umadov. |
| 0:31.6 | Whitkoff publicly praised both talks as productive, though the contours of a peace deal acceptable to Russia and Ukraine remain |
| 0:37.9 | unclear. For today's archive, I chose an episode from April 4, 2003, in which Una Hathaway |
| 0:44.5 | discussed how, while Russia's aggression against Ukraine has stressed the international legal order, |
| 0:49.4 | international law and institutions responded robustly, and could still emerge from the conflict |
| 0:54.0 | stronger than |
| 0:54.7 | they were before. The episode includes audio from Hathaway's Breyer Lecture at the Brookings |
| 0:59.3 | Institution, as well as from a panel moderated by Scott R. Anderson featuring Hathaway, |
| 1:04.3 | Rosa Brooks, Karen Landgren, and Martin Kimani. |
| 1:19.8 | Music Kimani. I'm Scott Rendererson, and this is the Lawfare podcast for April 4th, |
| 1:24.1 | 2023. |
| 1:25.7 | Russia's invasion of Ukraine has tested the international legal order like never before. |
| 1:31.4 | For many, the fact that a nuclear power and permanent member of the UN Security Council |
| 1:36.1 | would engage an unveiled aggression against another state seemed like it might be the death |
| 1:41.6 | knell of the international system as we know it. |
| 1:44.7 | But last week in the annual Breyer lecture on international law at the Brookings Institution, |
| 1:49.8 | Ona Hathaway, the Gerard C. and Bernice La Trobe, professor of international law at Yale Law School, |
| 1:55.3 | argued that international law and institutions had responded more robustly than many had initially anticipated, |
| 2:01.8 | and that they may yet emerge from the Ukraine conflict stronger than before. In this episode, we are bringing you |
| 2:07.6 | the audio of Professor Hathaway's lecture, followed by a question and answer session with my |
... |
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