Accountability for Russian imperialism in the Global East: The Special Tribunal for Aggression from a post-colonial Eastern European perspective

Although Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been met with condemnation, the proposed Special Tribunal for Aggression has received mixed reactions. Eastern European states support aggression prosecutions, Western powers are cautious, while parts of the non-Western world seem concerned about double standards in the enforcement of international criminal law. This chapter adopts a post-colonial, Eastern European perspective to assess arguments for and against a Special Tribunal. It 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 phantasies of a “Russkiy mir.” Against the backdrop of Western “mental maps” of Eastern Europe, the chapter considers why Ukraine has embraced international law as an emancipatory tool and how this relates to Eastern European states’ advocacy of a fully “international” over a “hybrid” tribunal. The chapter also nuances critiques of selectivity that overlook Ukraine’s liminal place within the global order as a post-colonial state straddling geographical boundaries. It suggests that the tribunal may help to decolonize thinking about the Soviet Union’s benevolent role in the Second World War and the Cold War, while providing inspiration for anti-imperial and counter-hegemonic advocacy globally.