Labuda: Countering Imperialism in International Law: Examining the Special Tribunal for Aggression against Ukraine through a Post-Colonial Eastern European Lens

Patryk I. Labuda (Univ. of Zurich - Law) has posted Countering Imperialism in International Law: Examining the Special Tribunal for Aggression against Ukraine through a Post-Colonial Eastern European Lens (Yale Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

While Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been met with condemnation, the proposed Special Tribunal for Aggression has received mixed reactions. Eastern European states support aggression prosecutions of the Russian leadership, Western powers are cautious, while parts of the non-Western world seem concerned about double standards in the enforcement of international criminal law. By adopting a post-colonial, Eastern European perspective, this article assesses the arguments for and against the establishment of a special tribunal. It foregrounds Ukraine’s history of foreign subjugation to illuminate the counter-hegemonic potential of aggression prosecutions and argues that Russia’s ‘de-Nazification’ rhetoric speaks in favor of a reckoning with Nuremberg’s distorted legacy and neo-imperial phantasies of a ‘Russkiy mir’. The article nuances critiques of selectivity that overlook Ukraine’s liminal place in the global order as a post-colonial state straddling boundaries between North and South, East and West, Europe and Asia. By emphasizing small and weak states’ advocacy for the criminalization of aggression before and after 2022, it suggests that the tribunal may provide inspiration for anti-imperial and counter-hegemonic struggles in other parts of the world, while decolonizing thinking about the Soviet Union’s benevolent role in the Second World War and the Cold War. Against the backdrop of ‘mental maps’ of Eastern Europe and the ‘semi-peripheral’ status of the ‘Global East’ in the global order, the article considers also why Ukraine has embraced international law as an emancipatory tool in its struggle against Russia, and how this relates to Eastern European states’ advocacy of an ‘international’ over a ‘hybrid’ tribunal. In conclusion, Eastern European states are encouraged to embrace the counter-hegemonic aspirations of other weaker states in the global order.