Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on November 9, 2026 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations for a lecture by Dmitry Dubrovskiy. Moderated by Elise Giuliano.
How can human rights and international law become instruments of warfare? In this public lecture, Dmitry Dubrovskiy, PhD (Department of Social Sciences, Charles University) will examine the role of lawfare in the Russia–Ukraine war, focusing on the strategic use of legal norms and human-rights discourse to justify military intervention, delegitimize opponents, exert political pressure, and pursue conflicts through international legal institutions. A central example is Russia’s repeated accusation that Ukraine was committing “genocide” against the Russian-speaking population of Donbas—a claim developed in Russian official discourse from 2014 onward and invoked by Vladimir Putin in 2022 as part of the justification for the full-scale invasion and its proclaimed goal of “de-Nazification.” The lecture will also discuss campaigns portraying Ukraine as a systematic human-rights violator, Russia’s use of the European Court of Human Rights, and Ukraine’s responses through the ICJ, ICC, and ECHR. The presentation asks a broader question: what happens when the language and institutions designed to protect human rights are themselves turned into instruments of geopolitical conflict?
Dmitry Dubrovskiy, PhD, is a historian and human-rights scholar affiliated with Charles University in Prague and the Center for Independent Social Research (CISRUS). His research focuses on human rights, academic freedom, freedom of expression, minority rights, and the political use of legal and human-rights discourse in contemporary Russia. He founded the first human-rights program for non-law students at Smolny College, St. Petersburg State University, and has worked on projects addressing hate speech, discrimination, anti-extremism legislation, access to information, and violations of academic rights. He has also served as a court expert on hate speech and hate crimes and has collaborated with international human rights and academic freedom organizations. His recent work examines repression in Russian higher education, scholars at risk, and the weaponization of human rights and international law in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Headshot: Jan Nordén
