International Law and Norms in Ukraine: New America Experts Respond

Russia “went on a brutal offensive against ...our freedom, our right to live freely, choosing our own future,” Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy told Congress yesterday in an appeal for more support from the United States. Authorities in Mariupol, where Russian airstrikes reportedly hit a hospital complex last week, estimate that Russia’s bombing has killed 2,500 people. New America’s experts are tracking the harmful effects of the war for civilians – and the international community’s response.

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Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America @SlaughterAM:

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a flagrant violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which commits all members to 'refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.' It is no more flagrant, however, than Russia's invasion, and then annexation, of Crimea in 2014. Or, many outside the West would argue, than when the United States invaded Iraq and toppled its government in 2003 without the approval of the UN Security Council. Russia is also committing hideous atrocities and serious war crimes in its bombing of civilians in Ukraine. But the world watched the near complete destruction of large parts of Syria, in part by Russian bombs. U.S. airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions of people are streaming out of Ukraine. Millions of people have fled Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, and other countries over the last decade.

Lawyers and experts can draw distinctions among all these cases. Still, what Russia is doing is not new. It is just bigger and bolder and is happening in Europe, on NATO's border. The refugees are white people who look just like the majority populations of European countries, the United States and Canada. As a result, the horror is on our front pages and our screens every day. Is the difference in degree -- the size and scale and sheer audacity of the attack -- sufficient to be a difference in kind? It is a serious question, on which the claim that we are at an inflection point for the entire post-war international order depends."

Daniel Rothenberg, Co-Director, Center on the Future of War, ASU:

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of international law and a textbook example of the crime of aggression. While many are unfamiliar with this concept, this was one of the key charges in the convictions of the Nazi leadership at the Nuremberg Tribunal. The crime of aggression has been called “the supreme international crime” because when one state attacks another unprovoked it upends the global order, potentially creating a cascade of abuses and a rapid escalation of violence that can be difficult, if not impossible to control. It is important now to name Russia’s actions in Ukraine for what they are: aggression.”

From New America events:

Anjali Dayal, Assistant Professor, Fordham University @anjalikdayal:

On small states' responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine: The UN Security Council "is not just a space for the P5 members in moments of crisis. It’s also a space for other states to reassert the value of multilateralism and to say...‘this is an illegitimate action.’”

For more: watch the recording of our event on UN peace negotiations and peacekeeping.

Theodore Johnson, Eric & Wendy Schmidt Fellow and Director, Fellows Program, Brennan Center for Justice @DrTedJ:

“Racism has always been a [national security] vulnerability for us…Right now there are Americans who believe this nation should be a white, Christian, nationalist country who admire what Putin is doing and want the same thing for [the United States], to be center on white identity…The thing that gives us our strength, which is the ability to find solidarity across lines of race is also the thing that other nations will try to attack.”

For more: watch the recording of our event on equity and racial justice in the U.S. National Security Strategy.

ICYMI: Watch New America’s event "'The Special Military Operation' on Russia's Internet" with Ben Dalton, Taisia Bekbulatova, and Yana Pashaeva in conversation with Andrés Martinez.

New America Experts in the News

• Ukraine names and shames: In the New York Times, Peter Singer underlined Ukraine's success at using social media to pressure companies to cut ties with Russia: "If there is such a thing as ‘cancel culture,’ the Ukrainians can claim to have honed it in war."
• A mercenary by any other name: Candace Rondeaux told the BBC that Russia's Wagner Group mercenary units are adopting new names to avoid a "tainted" brand.
• Do sanctions work?: “Sanctions are most effective when they are multilateral…They also work best when there’s a very specific way that the entities being sanctioned can get out from under them,” Heather Hurlburt told The Brian Lehrer Show.
• Putin's historic blunder: For CNN, Peter Bergen interviewed retired U.S. Army Major General Mike Repass, former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command in Europe, on why Putin will regret his invasion.
• A tool for good or ill: Nathalie Maréchal told NBC News that messaging application Telegram "is explicitly designed to be unaccountable, and whether you think that’s good or bad is in the eye of the beholder."
• NATO renewed: Daniel Rothenberg and Candace Rondeaux appeared on The Think Tank with Mike O'Neil, both emphasizing that Russia's military buildup and invasion of Ukraine have reinvigorated the NATO alliance.

New America continues to track the pandemic and how it intertwines with events in Ukraine, via the Covid Daily Brief edited by Peter Bergen, David Sterman, and Emily Schneider. Recent briefs have covered Ukraine’s response to Covid, oxygen shortages amid the invasion, and how the invasion’s fallout intertwines with the pandemic’s impact on the economy. The brief also covered the pandemic’s surge and record death tolls in Ukraine prior to Russia's invasion.

Subscribe to the Covid Daily Brief here.