Sovereign Immunity and Reparations in Ukraine

Editor’s note: This article is part of Just Security’s series on reparation mechanisms in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, experts estimate that it will cost nearly half a trillion dollars to rebuild the country. That figure does not include the ongoing cost of Ukraine’s defense, let alone the tremendous moral damages suffered during the war. Shortly after the invasion, Western countries froze roughly $300 billion in Russian foreign-currency reserves held in their central banks. Talk quickly turned to the possibility of seizing—rather than just freezing—those assets, as well as other assets belonging to Russia and to Russian oligarchs. While some officials were immediately enthusiastic about the idea of seizing Russian central bank assets, others expressed grave concern about the legal and policy implications of doing so. Those legal and policy concerns have not changed. What have shifted are some countries’ domestic legal landscapes, as well as their political will to push the legal envelope and downplay the policy risks of seizing Russian State assets as the war drags on and becomes ever-more costly. The sums that may be made available to Ukraine as a result of these shifts are sizeable,...