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Countering Imperialism in International Law: Examining the Special Tribunal for Aggression Against Ukraine through a Post-Colonial Eastern European Lens
Labuda, Patryk I.
Labuda, Patryk I.
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yjil_49_9-ocr.pdf
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Abstract
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been widely condemned, but a proposed special tribunal for the crime of aggression has received mixed reactions. Eastern European states support aggression prosecutions of the Russian leadership, Western powers are cautious, and the non-Western world seems concerned about double standards in the enforcement of international criminal law. In assessing the arguments for and against a special tribunal from a post-colonial, Eastern European perspective, this Article 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 fantasies 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, it suggests that the special tribunal may provide inspiration for anti-imperial and counter-hegemonic struggles in other parts of the world while decolonizing myths about the Soviet Union’s benevolent role in the Second World War and the Cold War. Against the backdrop of the “semi-peripheral” status of the Global East, the Article also considers 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 tribunal over a hybrid tribunal. In conclusion, it discusses why Eastern Europeans should embrace the counter-hegemonic aspirations of other weaker states in the global order.