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The Ukraine Crisis, Cold War II, and International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

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The Ukraine crisis has, yet again, called into question the coherence and stability of international law both as a language for mediating particular types of international disputes—such as conflicts between the so-called Great Powers— and as a set of institutions capable of serving as fora for the resolution of these disputes. Given the scale and intensity of the ongoing war in Ukraine and the magnitude of its regional and global repercussions, a number of policymakers and historians have already made compelling arguments for why the conflict may be the most significant threat to global order since the end of the Cold War—perhaps even since the Cuban Missile Crisis. While policymakers in the U.S. and Russia have cautioned against drawing Cold War parallels, numerous analysts in both countries have proclaimed the start of a new Cold War in light of the rapid deterioration in relations between Moscow and Washington. Beyond bilateral U.S.–Russia relations, and in the words of Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Cold War Two (hereinafter “CWII”) has “effectively put an end to the interregnum of [post-Cold War] partnership and cooperation between the West and Russia.” While sharing the view that a new Cold War has erupted, this article suggest that its causes are far deeper and its likely battlegrounds are far wider than mere antagonism between the United States and Russia over the fate of Ukraine, To the extent that CWII has begun, it may mark a return to interbloc rivalry, East versus West, or even Great Game geopolitics. To complement these frames, the present conflict may also be understood by viewing it through the prism of political economy, particularly the study of “new-statism,” or the new developmental state within the broader context of the development of global capitalism. Thinking of CWII this way allows one to ask whether CWII is actually a war between Western liberal capitalism and various systems of state capitalism, of which Russia's is but one. To be even more precise, one can also ask whether the conflict is better thought of as a contest between different state capitalisms for control over key trade or transit routes, production locales, and markets. Tribes, states, and empires have always waged mortal combat over these material matters. CWII—whether it has started or soon will—will likely rest on similar considerations. And yet, despite the seriousness of the threat, there has been remarkably little academic discussion, and much less public debate, regarding the configuration of global power flows that has contributed to this crisis or the role, and limitations of law in structuring our political imaginations in response to these challenges. This Article is an attempt to call attention to several serious aspects of the Ukraine crisis which have hitherto been underanalyzed, namely the role of information warfare in exacerbating its magnitude.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by German Law Journal GbR 

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[f]acts on the ground need to be established to help reduce the risk of radically different narratives being exploited for political ends […] People need a reliable point of view to counter what has been widespread misinformation and also speech that aims to incite hatred on national, religious or racial grounds …

** One of the most tragic, but by no means unique, instances of the politicization of fact-gathering processes in the Ukraine crisis has been the controversy regarding the downing of MH17 on 17 July 2014. See Excerpt of Address of Vitaly Churkin, Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations’ 7221th meeting (July 21, 2014), available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhIJ4vjUI4Q (calling for impartial and independent international investigation into the MH17 incident through the framework of ICAO); Ohlin, Jens David, Control Matters: Ukraine & Russia and the Downing of Flight 17, Opinio Juris Blog (July 23, 2014), http://opiniojuris.org/2014/07/23/control-matters-ukraine-russia-downing-fligh-17/ (considering state responsibility arguments for holding Russia culpable/liable for downing of MH17 while acknowledging several conflicting empirical accounts regarding the shootdown).Google Scholar

75 Herszenhorn, David M., Russia Is Quick to Bend Truth About Ukraine, N.Y. Times (Apr. 15, 2014), http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/world/europe/russia-is-quick-to-bend-truth-about-ukraine.html; Russia Warns of Ukraine Gas Cuts; Nuland Touts “Truth-Telling Campaign,” Democracy Now (Apr. 11, 2014), http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/11/headlines (describing testimony of Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee). The way in which Russia is typically said to exert control over information is through state control over means of mass communication, including the English-language outlet, RT. But the Kremlin has also operationalized seemingly apolitical administrative agencies, such as Rossotrudnichestvo (Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation, a federal agency with oversight over Russia's near-abroad), to shape the factual narrative over the Ukraine crisis, specifically to counter what Russia perceives as an information war against it. See, e.g., Rossotrudnichestvo, Information War Against Russia (translation of an article from El Nuevo Diario) (Mar. 18, 2015), http://rs.gov.ru/press/news/8091 (In Russian).Google Scholar

76 On 2 December 2014, for instance, Ukraine established a Ministry of Information Policy, whose stated goal is to counter Russian propaganda in Ukraine. Supreme Council of Ukraine, MiHicmp /нформоц/йно/ пол/тики Укроти, (Dec. 2, 2014), http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=247789675&cat_id=247077361; RWB Opposes Creation of Information Ministry, Reporters Without Borders (Dec. 2, 2014), http://en.rsf.org/ukrainerwb-opposes-creation-of-02-12-2014,47325.html;, Store's Nuland at House Hearing on Situation in Ukraine, U.S. Depart. of State (Mar. 4, 2015), http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2015/03/20150304313897.html#ixzz3V482DdQ1 (Statement of Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs:Google Scholar

And on Russia's propaganda, we're working with the Broadcasting Board of Governors to ramp up efforts to counter lies with truth. This year, the BBG is committing $23.2 million to Russian-language programming, a 49 percent increase over FY14, and is requesting an additional $15.4 million for FY16. We are also requesting more than $20 million in foreign assistance and public diplomacy funds to counter Russian propaganda through training for Russian-speaking journalists; support for civil society watchdogs and independent media; exchange programs for students and entrepreneurs; and access to fact-based news on the air, on front pages and online.

77 See Roth, supra note 30, at 390.Google Scholar

78 Chernov, Mstyslav & Leonard, Peter, Ukraine's Cease-Fire Deal Hurt by Deception, CTV News (Mar, 21, 2015), http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/ukraine-s-cease-fire-deal-hurt-by-deception-1.2290795 (“Evidence is emerging, however, that the warring sides are leading [OSCE] monitors on a time-wasting game of hide-and-seek.”).Google Scholar

79 Transcript of original Russian speech spoken into the record. Vitaly Churkin, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Address to the United Nations, at the United Nations Security Council 7253rd Meeting (Aug. 28, 2014), available at http://webtv.un.org/watch/ukraine-security-council-7253rd-meeting/3754452835001; U.N. S.C. Provisional Rep. S/PV.7253 (Aug. 23, 2014), [hereinafter Provisional Report] available at http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/PRO/N14/519/51/PDF/N1451951.pdf?OpenElement (emphasis added).Google Scholar

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81 C-Span automated transcription of UN Verbatim Reporting Service Russian-English translator. U.N. Security Council Meeting on Ukraine-Russia Conflict, (C-Span broadcast Aug. 28, 2014), http://www.c-span.org/video/?321183-2/un-security-council-meeting-ukraine (emphasis added).Google Scholar

82 See Report, Provisional, supra note 79.Google Scholar

83 Author's translation.Google Scholar

84 Official Document System of the United Nations, available at http://documents.un.org; The United Nations Live & On-demand, available at http://webtv.un.org.Google Scholar

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86 Goldsmith, Jack, The Precise (and Narrow) Limits On U.S. Economic Espionage, Lawfare Blog (Mar. 23 2015), http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/03/the-precise-and-narrow-limits-on-u-s-economic-espionage/; Walden, Paul, The Economic Blowback from NSA Spying Begins, Wash. Post (Mar. 21, 2014), http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/03/21/the-economic-blowback-from-nsa-spying-begins/.Google Scholar

87 Ukraine's New Bail-out: The Austerity to Come, The Economist (Feb. 12, 2015), http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/02/ukrairies-new-bail-out-0 (stating:Google Scholar

This morning the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it would probably grant Ukraine a new bail-out. How big is it? Some have reported a $17.5 billion bail-out; others a $40 billion figure. In fact, the ‘new’ bail-out is only worth around $5 billion. That is because the IMF already pledged $17 billion back in April, of which only $5 billion has been actually disbursed. In other words, the fund is making good old promises, rather than offering any new cash. Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, hopes that by the time other Western donors pile in, Ukraine will get about $40 billion-worth of cash. That is very optimistic. If the IMF disburses all the money it has promised, it will disburse about $18 billion over the next four years. America and the European Union have, vaguely, promised about $2 billion each. That together leaves us a long, long way short of $40 billion. Tim Ash, of Standard Bank, is blunt: ‘This is NOT a significantly increased IMF programme, and Ms Lagarde should not try and sell it as such.')

** (emphasis in original); Merkel's Remark On ‘Criminal’ Annexation Omitted In Russian Translation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (May 12, 2015), http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-merkel-putin-translation-criminal-word-omitted/27011285.html.Google Scholar

88 Relui, Darius, Torture and Democracy 411-12 (2007) (tracing the evolution of global torture regimes across centuries to observe a shift away from overt scarring to stealth or clean torture that leaves no marks, and hence, gives the torturer plausible factual deniability, which, in turn, absolves torturers from legal liability) (“Public monitoring, then, is still the critical variable that makes elites behave as they do.”).Google Scholar

89 Larson, Arthur, The Present Status of Propaganda in International Law, 31 Law & Contemp. Probs. 439 (1966). (explaining that the issue of disinformation is not a new one for international law) (“The exponential rate at which information technology has transformed over the past fifty years militates in favor of revisiting previous attempts to monitor, if not regulate, propaganda, with a view towards developing new paradigms of thinking about information flows and controls in the [twenty-first] century.”).Google Scholar

90 Koh, Harold, Why Do Nations Obey International Law?, 106 Yale L.J. 2634, 2651-55 (1997) (describing Israel's decision to obey the Oslo accords, in part, because “the relative openness of Israel's liberal democratic society created multiple channels to spur it forward: through public opinion, the news media, and other mechanisms of public accountability faced daily by Netanyahu and his party”).Google Scholar

91 See Dolidze, supra note 17.Google Scholar

92 Kennedy, David, The Mystery of Global Governance, 34 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 827 (2008); Butler, William E., Russia and the WTO System: Law, Regionalism, and Politics, 44 U. Mem. L. Rev. 599, 616 (2013).Google Scholar

93 Korhonen, Outi, Decontstructing the Conflict in Ukraine: The Relevance on International Law to Hybrid States and Wars, 16 German L.J. 452 (2015).Google Scholar

94 Bershidsky, Leonid, Ukraine's Oligarchs Are at War (Again), BloombergView (Mar. 20, 2015), http://www.blaombergview.com/articles/2015-03-20/ukraine-s-oligarchs-are-at-war-again-; Balmforth, Richard, Ukrainian Oligarch Under Fire After Night Raid on State Oil Firm, Reuters (Mar. 20, 2015), http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/20/us-ukraine-crisis-kalomaisky-idUSKBN0MG2A320150320. The conflict in issue in Kiev is an attempt by Igor Kolomoisky—an oligarch who was appointed by the post-Yanukovich government as governor of Dnipropetrovsk—to maintain control over a major energy pipeline operating company, which had recently been seized by representatives of the Poroshenko government.Google Scholar

95 Korhonen, supra note 93. For broader discussion regarding the need for an empirically-grounded understanding of the way that business clans play a constitutive role in various legal structures, see Ruskola, Teemu, Legal Orientalism: China, the United States, and Modern Law Ch. 3 (2013); see also Riles, Annelise, Collateral Knowledge: Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial Markets (2011) (analyzing the various ways that private governance regimes relating to collateral in financial transactions have emerged as a “quiet nexus of tremendous political and economic legitimacy—within the market, the government, and the wider political sphere”).Google Scholar

96 Marson, James & Shchetko, Nick, Ukraine President Ousts Fellow Tycoon as Regional Leader, Wall. St. J. (Mar. 25), http://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-ousts-regional-leader-kolomoisky-1427265254.Google Scholar

97 Pinchuk v. Bogalyubov, (unreported) EWHC (Comm) QB. (breach of contract claim by one Ukrainian billionaire against two rival Ukrainian billionaires arising out of privatization of a large energy company and pipelines) (Eng.).Google Scholar

98 Armitage, Jim, 'Evidence Destroyed’ in War of the Tycoons, The Independent (Apr. 18, 2014), http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/evidence-destroyed-in-war-of-the-tycoons-9268761.html.Google Scholar

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Such a ‘trial by ordeal’ doctrine is not as completely bereft of moral logic as it may initially appear. External assistance to separatist forces has been a notorious means of both great power predation and regional mischief. Moreover, however arbitrary state boundaries may be, settled bases for reconfiguration tend to be elusive.[).]

102 Oklopcic, Zoran, The Idea of Early-Conflict Constitution-Making: The Conflict in Ukraine Beyond Territorial Rights and Constitutional Paradoxes, 16 German L.J. 658, 661 (2015) (“Irrespective of its frequent association with radical nationalism, the vocabulary of a nation's territorial rights is one of the dominant ways to justify the legitimacy of territorial sovereignty in normative political theory.”).Google Scholar

103 Roth, supra note 30, at 412 (“States were licensed to crush internal efforts at territorial fragmentation; only when they proved confessedly unwilling or decisively unable to do so did they lose their legal claim to territorial integrity.”).Google Scholar

104 Pinchuk, (unreported) (Eng.), at paras. 1–2.Google Scholar

105 Koskenniemi, Martti, The Place of Law in Collective Security, 17 Mich, J. Int'l L. 455 (1995-1996), available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/mjil17&div=20&id=&page=.Google Scholar

106 Russia's Second Largest Oil Producer Enters First Week of Operations in Iraq, Albawaba (Mar. 30, 2014), http://www.albawaba.com/business/lukoil-iraq-565042.Google Scholar

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108 The most recent example of this could be China's recent announcement to begin air strikes or otherwise contributing to the anti-ISIS effort in Iraq, given that Iraq has recently overtaken Russia in volume of oil sold to China, second only to Angola.Google Scholar

109 Kratzke, William & Titoff, Dmitri, Russia and the WTO: Realpolitik by the Rules of Free Trade, 44 Mem. L. Rev. 633 (2014), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2461777.Google Scholar

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111 See generally Eurasian Economic Integration: Law, Policy and Politics 179, 197 (Dragneva, Rilka & Kataryna Wolczuk eds., 2013).Google Scholar

112 See Slaughter, Anne-Marie, International Law in a World of Liberal States, 6 Eur. J. Int'l L. 503 (1993); Alvarez, Jose, Do Liberal States Behave Better? A Critique of Slaughter's Liberal Theory, 12 Eur. J. Int'l L. 183 (2001).Google Scholar

113 Anders Åslund, Sergey Giazyev and the Revival of Soviet Economics, 29 Post-Soviet Aff. 375 (2013), available at http://www.tandfonlinE.cam/dai/abs/10.1080/1060586X.2013.809199.Google Scholar

114 As Gerry Simpson writes, our conceptions of the international legal order have always had inclusive (pluralist) and exclusive (anti-pluralist) streams, often, again, simultaneously. Simpson, supra note 1. States, in turn, may choose to isolate or ‘outlaw’ themselves (early Soviet autarky) or they may be Isolated by the international community because of the ultra vires nature of their creation (Iran, North Korea, etc.) or behavior—namely, Soviet Union as an outlaw state in the eyes of the West based on perceptions of aggression (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan), and anti-liberalism. A state may also declare itself to be an outlaw, or an anti-law state, as the early Soviet experience with international law makes clear. Simpson, supra note 1, at 261 (Nazis viewed the USSR as an anti-state). But as Simpson, Roth, and many others note, the move away from universalism/homogeneity towards a greater acceptance of pluralism typically occurs when an actor (such as the Soviet state vis-à-vis the League) shows Itself capable of maintaining a baseline level of effective control over a territory, or otherwise signals legitimism. Id.; Roth, supra note 30, at 412 n. 99 (“Successful revolution sooner or later begets its own legality.”) (quoting Stanley A. de Smith, Constitutional and Administrative Law (1977)); Roth, Brad, Governmental Illegitimacy and International Law 136-50 (1999).Google Scholar

115 Taylor, Adam, Russia on Iraq: ‘We Told You So,' Wash. Post (June 12, 2014), http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/06/12/russia-on-iraq-we-told-you-so/ (“[I]t's tempting to look at Russia's positions [against intervention] on various conflicts and wonder whether there was something to it. … Critics might also point out that in Iraq, Libya and Syria, Putin has been unusually vocal In his support of strongman leaders — like supports like, you could say.”).Google Scholar

116 See, e.g., Knox, Rob, Strategy and Tactics, 21 Finnish Y.B. Int'l L. 193 (2010), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1921759.Google Scholar

117 Secretary-General, U.N., island of Palmas Case (Netherlands, USA), 2 U.N. Rep. Int'l Arb. Awards 829. (Apr. 4, 1928); Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970), Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1971, 16; see also Stone, Julius, Social Dimensions of Law and Justice 494 (Stanford Univ. Press 1966) (“In the nature of things those who wielded the transitional state power [in Soviet society] would fix the time-table for this metamorphosis [from bourgeois legality to communism].”).Google Scholar

118 Oklopcic, supra note 102 (describing disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia from 1991 to Kosovo in 2008 as territorial fragmentation on “time-release”).Google Scholar

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120 Roth, supra note 30.Google Scholar

121 European Convention of Human Rights arts. 10 (freedom of expression), 11 (freedom of association), 14 (discrimination), Dec. 20, 1971, 14 CETS 194; Bernadette Rainey et al., Jacobs, White and Ovey: the European Convention on Human Rights 476 (2014); David Harris et al., Law of the European Convention on Human Rights, in United Communist Party of Turkey (2014) (explaining that the European Court of Human Rights held that Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights extends to political parties, and not merely trade-union-type associations). United Communist Party of Turkey and Others v. Turkey, App. No. 133/1996/752/951 (Jan. 30, 1998), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-58128#{“itemid”:[“001-58128”]}.Google Scholar

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123 Gudkov, Lev, Россия переживает рецидив тоталитаризма [Russia is Living Through Recidivism of Totalitarianism], Novoe Vremya (Dec. 16, 2014), http://nv.ua/opinion/Gudkov/rossiya-perezhivaet-recidiv-totalitarizma–25255.html. In Russian Lev Gudkav is the head of Russia's Levada Center, one of the most credible polling organizations in contemporary Russia.Google Scholar

124 Dolidze, supra note 17; Malksoo, infra note 151; Titoff, infra note 125 (stating that:Google Scholar

Psychological compensation is achieved in two ways. The media make Russia appear nobler (great power, rich culture etc.) and the media expose flaws and decadence in Western societies. Gudkov points to the apparent irrationality of the public reaction that approaches fatalism. He observes that the Russians are deeply pessimistic about their personal future. By endorsing the Kremlin's political course, they derive satisfaction by associating with their country's perceived great power behavior.).

125 Titoff, Dmitri, Is Russia's Perceived insecurity a Sufficient Explanation for War?, Silk Road Reporters (Mar. 15, 2015), http://www.silkroadreporters.com/2015/03/15/is-russias-perceived-insecurity-a-sufficient-explanation-for-war/.Google Scholar

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128 To dampen populist Ukrainian hopes for European integration, Russia could sustain a “frozen conflict” in Luhansk/Donetsk, modeled on Transdniestria. Similarly, a frozen conflict could be advantageous to certain Western powers or Ukraine, as it may act as an obstacle to any future prospective integration with Russia or a Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union.Google Scholar

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130 Kennedy, David, Of War and Law 41 (2006). In contrast to realists, liberal internationalists generally see international relations in positive-sum, versus zero-sum terms. See Feldman, Noah, Cool War: The Future of Global Competition 171–172 (2013); cf. Robert O. Keohane, After hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy 98–105 (1984).Google Scholar

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132 Cf. Carlson, Brian, Russia-China Gas Deal a Sign of Russian Weakness, Not New Alliance, Foreign Policy Inst., Johns Hopkins Univ., Sch. of Advanced Int'l Studies (June 4, 2014), available at http://www.fpi.sais-jhu.edu/#!RussiaChina-Gas-Deal-a-Sign-of-Russian-Weakness-Not-New-Alliance/clqvb/54c690900cf2ad5dc6e2cd8b.Google Scholar

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135 Mamlyuk, Boris N., Uniting for Peace in the Second Cold War: A Response to Larry Johnson, Am. Soc. Int'l J. (July 21 2014), available at http://www.asil.org/blogs/uniting-%E2%80%9Cpeace%E2%80%9D-second-cold-war-response-larry-johnson.Google Scholar

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140 Snyder, Timothy, Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine, in N.Y. Rev. of Books (2014).Google Scholar

141 Id. Google Scholar

142 Chertok, Paula, Timothy Snyder: Ukraine is But One Aspect of a Much Larger Strategy that Threatens European Order, Euromaidan Press (Mar. 18, 2015), available at http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/03/18/timothy-snyder-ukraine-is-but-one-aspect-of-a-much-larger-strategy-that-threatens-european-order/.Google Scholar

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144 Cooley, Alexander, Ukraine's Insta-Symposium Russia's Rule-breaking as Power Politics, Opinio Juris, http://opiniojuris.org/2014/03/07/russias-rule-breaking-power-politics/#sthash.HnjG3RTR.dpuf.Google Scholar

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147 Russia was recognized as a “market economy” by the EU on 29 May 2002. The United States recognized Russia as a “market economy” on 7 June 2002. See Russian Democracy Act of 2002, H.R. 2121 (2002), available at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/hr2121/text; See EU Announces Formal Recognition of Russia as “Market Economy” in Major Milestone on Road to WTO Membership, European Commission (May 29, 2012), availible at europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-02-775_en.pdf; Butler, W.E., Russian Foreign Relations and Investment Law (2006).Google Scholar

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150 Interview by Farber, Myron A., The Rule of Law Oral History Project 8: The Reminiscences of Scott Horton (Nov. 21, 2012).Google Scholar

151 Cf. Lauri Malksoo, The History of International Legal Theory in Russia: A Civilizational Dialogue with Europe, 19 Eur. J. Int'l L. 211 (2008).Google Scholar

152 Harvey, David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 76–77 (2005) (citations omitted).Google Scholar

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154 See Korhonen, supra note 93 (“These suggestions disregard law's endemic symbiosis with power structures and come up with old catch-all explanations that … the more void of meaning [they are] the more ubiquitous they become, for example ‘the new cold war.'”); see also Feldman, supra note 130.Google Scholar

155 See d'Aspremont, supra note 127.Google Scholar

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The West's motivations in Ukraine, too, seem more pedagogical than strategic: to show Putin that changing borders by force is unacceptable in Europe today. The hope is that economic sanctions, together with Russian casualties on the ground, will force Russia humbly to accept its post-Cold War status as a third-rate power, while sending the additional message that any effort to revise the U.S.-led world order is doomed to fail — with serious economic costs.[).]

157 Roth, supra note 30, at 394 (discussing the “intellectually dishonesty” of the Badinter Commission and ICJ's Kosovo decision in redefining existing doctrine to accommodate prevailing moral reaction to Serb nationalism and ethnic violence in the region following the dissolution of Yugoslavia).Google Scholar

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159 Dunlap, Charles J., Jr., Lawfare Today: A Perspective, 3 Yale J. Int'l Aff. 146 (2008).Google Scholar

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161 Zifcak, Spencer, The Responsibility to Protect After Libya and Syria, 13 Melbourne J. Int'l L. 59 (2012), available at https://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/files/dmfile/downloaddad11.pdf.Google Scholar

162 Bolton, John, To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran, N.Y. Times (Mar. 26, 2015), http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/opinion/to-stop-irans-bomb-bomb-iran.html?_r=0.Google Scholar

163 See, for example, Koskenniemi, Martti, The Place of Law in Collective Security, 17 Mich. J. Int'l L. 455 (1995); Kennedy, David, the Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism (2005),Google Scholar

164 Haskell, John D., Taking Risks Ethically, 22 Florida J. Int'l L. 285 (2010).Google Scholar

165 Far an analogous Expression of political will in the academic context, see Matthew Craven et al., We Are Teachers of International Low, 17 Leiden J. Int'l L. 363 (2004).Google Scholar

166 Borgen, Chris, The Crimea, Compliance, and the Constraint of International Law, Opinio Juris (Mar. 3, 2014), available at http://opiniojuris.org/2014/03/03/crimea-compliance-coristraint-iriterriational-law/.Google Scholar

167 Yves Dezalay, Bryant G. Garth, The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States (2002); Mattei, Ugo & Nader, Laura, Plunder: When the Rule of Law is Illegal (2008).Google Scholar

168 See, e.g., Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014, S.2277 (2014), available at https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2277.Google Scholar

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172 Lebedev, Alexander & Inozemtsev, Vladislav, The West is Wrong to Write Off Ukraine's Debts, The Guardian (Apr. 13, 2015), http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/13/ukraine-debts-lebedev-corruption (“Between 2010 and 2014, Ukraine was something unknown in modern history—a private state. … The sometimes private state should be countered with private international justice—and only this will ensure that the corruption of the past will not be repeated.”).Google Scholar

173 Ku, Julian, Should the U.S. Use “Lawfare” Against Russia?, Opinio Juris (Apr. 9, 2014), http://opiniojuris.org/2014/04/09/u-s-use-lawfare-russia/#sthash.ZfUcmf8T.dpuf. The original Wall Street Journal piece by Rivkin and Casey claimed that lawfare was damaging the U.S. by trapping it in litigation and restricting its freedom of action in critical respects. The authors argued that Al-Qaida, for instance, was instructing its fighters to claim that they were tortured so as to attain sympathy from domestic and global polities. The subsequent piece by Rivkin and Casey seems to endorse lawfare tactics against Russia by encouraging the “U.S. and its allies [to] challenge the legality of Russia's actions in every conceivable legal venue, whether domestic or international.” David Rivkin & Lee Casey, The Outlaw Vladimir Putin, Wall St. J. (Apr. 8, 2008), http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304640104579485331656203834.Google Scholar

174 Horton, supra note 150, at 11 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

175 Miéville, China, Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law (2005) (“Between equal rights, force prevails.”).Google Scholar

176 Mamlyuk, supra note 138.Google Scholar

177 As a scholar focused on Russian approaches to international law and global governance, I have done research in Moscow's Institute of State and Law under the auspices of the U.S. Fulbright program, and my work generally tries to understand Soviet and Russian legal theory against broader historical and economic currents. I have been following developments in the post-Soviet space since my days in law school and travel to the region to conduct research, gather materials, and meet with scholars in effort to understand the social and legal contours of the respective societies.Google Scholar

178 Chotiner, Isaac, Meet Vladimir Putin's American Apologist, New Republic (Mar. 2, 2014), http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116820/vladimir-putin-defended-american-leftist.Google Scholar

179 Gutterman, Steve, Russian Professor Under Pressure over Nazi Comparison on Ukraine, Moscow Times (Mar. 4, 2014), available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/04/us-ukraine-crisis-russia-professor-idUSBREA231SX20140304; Cohen, Stephen F., Cold War Book Reviewing?, N.Y. Times (June 4, 1995), http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/04/books/1-cold-war-book-reviewing-087505.html (describing how U.S. Cold War-era academic and journalistic communities “imputed bad and even un-American thinking to scholars who dared rethink prevailing explanations of Soviet history”); Ivie, Robert, Cold War Dissent Revisited, 17 Rhetoric & Pub. Aff. 163 (2014).Google Scholar

180 John N. Hazard, Recollections of a Pioneering Sovietologist (2d ed. 1987).Google Scholar

151 Mamlyuk, Boris N. & Mattei, Ugo, Comparative international Law, 36 Brook. J. Int'l L. 385, 408 (2011).Google Scholar

152 On May 1, 2014, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced the 2014 Russian Aggression Prevention Act, which would authorize, inter alia, up to $100 million in direct military aid for Ukraine. See supra note 168. Since then, the U.S. and other NATO states have announced various other military aid commitments to Ukraine.Google Scholar

183 U.S. Department of the Treasury: Resource Center, Ukraine-Related Sanctions, available at http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/ukraine.aspx Google Scholar

184 For instance, on August 7, 2014, Russia placed a one-year embargo on food imports from the United States, European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway, Roberto Ferdman, Russia's Ban on American Food imports is Going to Hit the U.S. Poultry, Pork and Nut Industries the Hardest, Wash. Post (Aug. 7, 2014), http://www.washingtanpost.cam/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/07/russias-ban-on-american-foad-imports-is-going-to-hit-the-u-s-poultry-pork-and-nut-industries-the-hardest/.Google Scholar