Lawfare
The Russian Central Bank. (Фотобанк Moscow-Live, https://flic.kr/p/A7gMFG; CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)
Pundits have reveled in the prospect of using the Russian central bank funds currently frozen by the U.S. Department of Treasury to make reparations to Ukraine for war crimes and other injuries inflicted by Russia’s devastating and outlaw invasion. How delicious it would be to enforce international law against such an obviously culpable perpetrator, all done by the United States without any outside help! A recent New York Times op-ed by Harvard Law emeritus professor Laurence Tribe and younger colleague Jeremy Lewin blow by potential legal obstacles at warp speed. My colleague Giving Russian Assets to Ukraine—Freezing Is Not Seizing