Ukraine & Legal Theory

Digging a Hole: The Legal Theory Podcast

This week we have an emergency podcast episode on the war in Ukraine. We’re joined by our two colleagues and leading international law scholars – Oona Hathaway, the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, and Scott Shapiro, the Chalres F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School.

In this conversation, which took place Sunday, February 27 even as a fluid situation evolved, we focus on the legal theory implications of the war. We get into Oona and Scott’s book The Internationalists and whether Putin’s invasion constitutes a challenge to the global legal order described in their book. In addition, even if in the global order a norm exists against aggression and conquest, do some countries seem to be exempt from operating under these norms? We next compare the American domestic criminal law system to the international legal system and ask why internationally we tolerate a system where one actor can veto attempts to make it operate within the system. A debate emerges if Russia is actually avoiding the norms of the legal system right now given the costs it is facing through the global response to their invasion. In the conversation, we discuss the efficacy of “outcasting” and whether current American and European sanctions can be effective. After, we touch on Putin’s case for war and how his justification compares to other historic “war manifestos.”

There’s a lot to discuss here and we’re lucky to have two of the experts in the field here to break it down.

Referenced Readings

• The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro
• “Outcasting: Enforcement in Domestic and International Law,” Oona A. Hathaway & Scott J. Shapiro.
• “Putin Can’t Destroy the International Order by Himself,” Oona A. Hathaway & Scott J. Shapiro
• “War Manifestos,” Oona A. Hathaway, Scott J. Shapiro, et al.
• “Putin’s Case for War, Annotated,” Max Fisher.
• “The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War,” Nicholas Mulder.
• The Concept of the Political, Carl Schmitt.
• “Forms of Modern Imperialism in International Law,” Carl Schmitt.