Russia’s Aggression Against Ukraine and the International Legal Order
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2023
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
More information on the Breyer Lecture is available on the Brookings Institution’s website.
A video recording of Professor Hathaway’s lecture is available at https://www.brookings.edu/events/russias-aggression-against-ukraine-and-the-international-legal-order/.
The text of Professor Hathaway’s lecture has been published at https://www.brookings.edu/on-the-record/how-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-tested-the-international-legal-order/.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | And it's easy to look at those violations and say, well, that's just a kind of recipe for disaster. |
| 0:41.0 | And maybe we should just kind of give up on this internationally order thing |
| 0:45.0 | and sort of take what comes. |
| 0:47.0 | And I guess I think that that would be a rash conclusion to arrive at. |
| 0:53.0 | And I think it's also the case that when we're seeing that these countries are not |
| 0:58.0 | fully abiding by international law, obviously there's plenty of violations that we can point to. |
| 1:04.0 | But there's so many ways in which international law is structuring their behavior. |
| 1:08.0 | Even if states are not thinking, I am now abiding by international law. |
| 1:14.0 | I'm Scott Anderson. |
| 1:16.0 | And this is the LawFair podcast for April 4, 2023. |
| 1:20.0 | Russia's invasion of Ukraine has tested the international legal order like never before. |
| 1:26.0 | For many, the fact that a nuclear power and permanent member of the U.N. Security Council |
| 1:32.0 | would engage an unveiled aggression against another state |
| 1:35.0 | seemed like it might be the death now of the international system as we know it. |
| 1:39.0 | But last week in the annual Breyer Lecture on International Law at the Brookings Institution, |
| 1:45.0 | Ona Hathaway, the Gerard C. and Bernice Lattrobe, professor of International Law at Yale Law School, |
... |
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