Ukraine: Odds and Ends

1. Douglas Cox discusses the Panama analogy.

Consent was a central U.S. justification for intervention in Panama that was just as, if not more, thin than the paper on which Yanukovych’s invitation to Putin is written. The U.S. position was that it had never recognized the Noriega regime as the legitimate government in Panama and, just before Operation Just Cause began, the U.S. government purported to swear into office — on a U.S. military base — Guillermo Endara as the President of Panama, who then invited U.S. forces into his country. As the U.S. Army’s Law of War Manual later described “concurrent with the invasion, Mr. Endara was sworn in as President of Panama in the U.S. Southern Command Headquarters one hour before the invasion occurred; forces were already airborne en route” (see p.82).

 2. Ryan Goodman argues that Ukraine should join the ICC because that will deter Russian troops from committing war crimes on Ukrainian soil, assure the Russians that the Ukrainian government will not massacre ethnic Russian civilians who live in Ukraine, and provide a forum in case the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government is ever questions. But ICC involvement so far has made governments pretty unhappy–countries that have invited it in and western governments who dislike its interference. The institution is too new, too unpredictable, too hard to control–and it eliminates the valuable option of amnesty. An ICC prosecution of, say, a Russian soldier who was captured in Ukraine and sent to the Hague would create a completely unnecessary global crisis.

3. Ashley Deeks publishes a reader’s legal defense of the Russian intervention. This is the most carefully argued defense I have seen; however,  I disagree with it for reasons I give here.