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1 1 (April 26, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/govefqd0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ *.Research Service informing the Iegislative debate since 1914___________________ International Neutrality Law and U.S. Military Assistance to Ukraine April 26, 2022 The United States, the European Union (EU), and others have supplied many forms of security assistance to Ukraine in the weeks since Russia's invasion. Recent U.S. assistance to Ukraine, discussed in an earlier In Focus, ranges from ammunition to anti-aircraft weapons to communications systems. At the same time, the United States has stopped short of sending some military equipment requested by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, such as combat aircraft. Deciding which arms to provide raises a variety of legal, political, and practical considerations, including the potential for escalation with Russia, the Ukrainian military's capacity to operate the equipment, and the risk that Russia could reverse engineer captured equipment. While international law is just one facet of this calculus, media outlets report that the Biden Administration discussed questions about the legality of U.S. security assistance, and observers have analyzed whether supplying arms could violate the international law of neutrality. International neutrality law governs the legal relationship between countries that are not taking part in an international armed conflict (neutral states) and those that are engaged in such a conflict (belligerents). The international community developed the principles of the international law of neutrality in an era before the Charter of the United Nations (U.N.) prohibited using force as a tool to resolve international conflict. Scholars have described the law of neutrality as an old body of law with a slightly musty quality that does not always translate to modern warfare. Russia and Ukraine are engaged in an international armed conflict and, thus, are belligerents. Under traditional conceptions of neutrality, sending war material of any kind to Ukraine or any other belligerent would violate a duty of neutrality; however, some countries, including the United States, have adopted the doctrine of qualified neutrality. Under this doctrine, states can take non-neutral acts when supporting the victim of an unlawful war of aggression. For the reasons discussed in an earlier Sidebar, Ukraine has firm grounds to contend that it is such a victim and is acting in self-defense. Under these circumstances, arms assistance to Ukraine would generally be lawful under the qualified neutrality doctrine, provided that Ukraine complies with other legal frameworks governing the conduct of hostilities. Even if qualified neutrality did not apply in this instance and U.S. security assistance breached a duty of neutrality, international law would limit the breach's legal consequences. For example, security assistance to Ukraine would not permit Russia to use force against the United States in response to a neutrality Congressional Research Service https://crsreports. congress.gov LSB10735 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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