Kathryn Hendley1; 1 University of Wisconsin, United States
Discussion
In the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, legal academics in Western Europe and the United States had the opportunity to collaborate actively with their Russian counterparts. These collaborations included joint research projects and projects aimed at expanding the methodological approaches used by legal scholars in Russia. Russian scholars became regular participants in panels at inter-disciplinary groups like the Law & Society Association. Their presentations at these conferences included projects that tackled questions that would never have been tolerated in the Soviet era. Most notably, many scholars began studying the day-to-day reality of law.
The invasion has upended these collaborative efforts in several significant ways. First, as university officials were forced to pledge their allegiance to the Kremlin and their support for the invasion, many Russian scholars have decamped from Russia. Even if they remain in Russia, the home institutions of many Western scholars have imposed restrictions on collaborations. These include limits on carrying out field work or co-financing research. Second, the ever-expanding repressive tactics of the Kremlin have placed a damper on legal research. Many topics, especially those that expose problems in society or weaknesses in the legal system, are now off limits. At a minimum, the results cannot be published in Russia. Simply carrying out the research can be risky for all scholars involved, especially those still based in Russia.
