Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on October 27, 2025 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations for a talk by Paul Stephan. Moderated by Matthew Murray.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 provoked fury and broad condemnation. It seems as clear an instance of evil versus good and international lawlessness in international relations as we have seen in some time. Yet Russia has not been repulsed, even if it has not achieved its objectives, and the economic sanctions imposed by the West produced mostly short-term pain. The ambiguity of the Trump administration’s position on the war certainly has not helped. Where are the consequences of this outrageous act?
The answer is that Russia has done terrible, perhaps irreversible harm to its position as a regional power. It will face a geopolitical and geoeconomic reckoning, although it may take five to ten years for the real costs to be manifest. This talk will give an account of this reckoning and will reflect more generally on the efficacy of international law and the liberal international order as a means of disciplining powerful states.
Paul Stephan is the John C. Jeffries, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law, Louis F. Ryan ’73 Research Professor of Law, Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law, and a senior fellow at the Miller Center of Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He has taught at universities and diplomatic academies in Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, France, Georgia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. He served as Counselor for International Law to the Legal Adviser of the Department of State in 2006-2007, and as Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense in 2020-21. He was coordinating reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States from 2012 to 2018 and now serves as an advisor to that project.
Stephan also engages in issues of public concern as well as working as an appellate advocate and serving as an expert witness in international arbitration and domestic litigation in Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. For the last few years he has taken part in the debate over the design of sanctions directed at Russia, including testifying before Congress and advising relevant government agencies as well as publishing various media emissions, blog posts, and podcasts. He also maintains a Substack account.
