The 9th Annual Breyer Lecture: Oona A. Hathaway on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the international legal order

Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor Ukraine last year — following its seizure and annexation of Crimea in 2014 and subsequent proxy war in eastern Ukraine — is perhaps the most significant challenge to the international legal order to arise since the end of World War II. On March 30, 2023, as part of the ninth annual Justice Stephen Breyer Lecture on International Law, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted Professor Oona A. Hathaway for a keynote address on Russia’s war of aggression, the international response, and what they teach us about international law and the future of the international legal order.

Hathaway is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, professor of international and area studies at the Yale University MacMillan Center, professor at the Yale University Department of Political Science, and director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges.

After the keynote address, Constanze Stelzenmüller, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings, joined Hathaway for a conversation on legal responses to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, followed by a panel discussion of distinguished experts.

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