“We’ve really seen an attempt to rewrite the fundamental rules of international society. I think we have had a world order since 1945—as imperfect as it was—that kept the world, to some extent, reasonably safe … But when you hear a nuclear power talking about the possibility of using nuclear weapons in 2022, when you hear a sitting head of state threatening other European nations … You can see that the rules we used to believe applied to everybody have really been stretched,” said clinical law professor Paolo Galizzi. 

In a Feb. 28 virtual panel moderated by law professors Jed Shugerman and Julie Suk, Galizzi joined Director of Fordham’s Center on National Security Karen J. Greenberg and Leitner Family Professor of International Law Thomas H. Lee to discuss America’s ability to de-escalate the international conflict and speculate how events could play out in the coming weeks. 

What Can the U.S. Legally Do? 

The three experts unanimously agreed that Russia had breached international law by invading Ukraine. 

Lee said that in response, the U.S. may take actions that comply with both international law and U.S. law. Under international law, U.S. use of armed force would be permitted because Ukraine invited military intervention from other countries, including specifically a no-fly zone. But U.S. law is a separate matter. Under U.S. law, the President can use armed force to rescue U.S. or allied persons in Ukraine, but Congress may have to authorize other uses of armed force in Ukraine. This includes enforcing a no-fly zone, which may involve U.S. warplanes shooting down Russian warplanes. Under U.S. law, the president can also implement economic sanctions and provide weapons to Ukraine, both of which have already occurred. 

Lee said that in theory, the U.S. may also conduct cyber operations that do not amount to “use of force.” There is a law called the covert-action statute that authorizes the President to make findings, report to some members of Congress, and take secret actions, including encouraging anti-Putin protests in Russia. However, the U.S. has likely not engaged in any covert operations to avoid escalating the dispute, said Lee. 

“And, just as important, what would happen if Putin were ousted? What’s going to happen next in Russia?” he added.

Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the sixth and current president of Ukraine, has been receiving positive attention, said Greenberg. 

“He has become a hero worldwide, particularly to the younger generations. His phraseology, his way of responding to the people themselves is extraordinary, and I think he’s getting a tremendous amount of credit for it,” she said, adding that Zelenskyy, a former actor and comedian, has shown the world lessons in leadership. 

A Shadow Over Historic Solidarity

Other countries have been stepping up in extraordinary ways, said the panelists. Lee noted that Germany, in an unprecedented move, recently announced that it would supply Ukraine with critical weapons. Galizzi said that he was positively surprised by the strong resolve of not only Germany, but normally neutral Switzerland and countries within the European Union and worldwide. 

“This conflict has really touched upon European sensitivity in a way that I haven’t seen in a long time,” Galizzi said. “I think European public opinion seems to believe that this conflict is different—that this conflict is very dangerous, that this conflict really poses an existential threat to the very survival of the European ideals of democracy and identity.” 

Panel moderator Julie Suk noted that Ukraine recently applied for membership in the European Union, which would give Ukraine more security. It’s a politically smart move, but it’s unlikely that Ukraine will soon receive admission, said Galizzi. The admission process usually requires years of negotiations and requires ratification by all 26 member states, he said. 

“The European Union has been doing all sorts of things, exceptionally. They might give them emergency admission, but I truly believe this is simply not a realistic option in the short term,” he said. 

In addition to requesting membership in the European Union, Ukraine’s desire for membership in  NATO has been growing for some time now, said Greenberg. However, an ongoing conflict between Russia and NATO—and Putin’s insistence that NATO not expand—complicates potential admission. For Putin, admission to NATO is seen as a line in the sand, challenging Russia’s own security, said Greenberg. 

“NATO forces have not been invoked yet in the way they may now be called upon—in other words, to interfere actively in defending member nations—although NATO stood at the ready after 9/11,” Greenberg said. “This is therefore a test of NATO, its purpose and its strength.” 

Economic Sanctions vs. World War III

In a Q&A with the audience, law professor James Kainen asked the panelists about Putin’s motivation behind the invasion of Ukraine. Greenberg said that the answer goes beyond territorial disputes. 

“He is very much living within a Cold War framework and a Cold War mindset, determined to not just necessarily rebuild what the Soviet Union’s empire was, but to really create this larger sense of the Soviet Union … When they write the history books about this, they’re going to go back through time and look at … the many times that Putin has tried to get away with something,” she said, noting Russia’s interference in U.S. elections and the 2014 Russian invasion that led to the annexation of Crimea. “He has been testing the international order … and Ukraine has been a central part of this story.” 

At the heart of the debate is a fundamental question about nationalism and how we define ourselves, Greenberg added.

“The idea of who the Russian people are and how you define the Russian people, ethnically and nationally, is very much at the heart of how this debate is playing out: between Putin and Ukraine, between Russians in Russia and Russian-speaking people like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who are in Ukraine,” Greenberg said. “And this is a conversation that the world is having globally, not about Russia, but about nationalism and ethnicity—about how we define ourselves and who defines who we are.” 

Lee added, “He wants to make Russia great again—and to give the United States a black eye.”

Galizzi said that it is important for this war to not be seen as a conflict between the West and Russia, but rather as a conflict “between all law-abiding nations and a country that is violating all the basic tenets of international law.” (He referenced a recent resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations, where 141 countries voted to condemn Russia’s invasion; there were only 35 abstentions and five votes against the resolution.)

The international community as a whole must continue to put pressure on Russia with legal strategies, said Galizzi. But he warned that the options are somewhat limited, considering that Russia has threatened nuclear warfare. 

“We’re only limited in what we can do,” Galizzi said. “I think Biden put it very nicely: insider sanctions or the third world war.”

By Stevenson Swanson

One of the highlights of Pope Francis’ five-day visit to the Philippines in January was an open-air Mass in Tacloban, a city of more than 200,000 people that had been devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013. He told the crowd of several hundred thousand gathered at the airport that he came to Tacloban because he wanted to express his closeness to “our brothers and sisters who endured suffering, loss, and devastation.”

He did not talk about the environment or climate change, issues that are important to him and have been sources of much speculation since he announced they would be the subject of an encyclical—reserved for a pope’s most important teachings—later this year. Then again, he did not really need to mention them.

After all, his trip to the city had been moved up and shortened because of an approaching storm, and the Mass was held in a drenching downpour with high winds. Like everyone else there that day, the pope wore a poncho.

“The environment was front and center,” said Henry Schwalbenberg, PhD, director of Fordham’s master’s degree program in international political economy and development (IPED), who was there with some of his students. “He was trying to help people deal with the suffering in their lives that was caused by an environmental event—in the middle of a tropical storm.

“The organizers offered him the choice of saying Mass in a tent, but he refused the indoor option. I think the rain and the storm were right on for what he wanted.”

Slapping Nature in the Face

Weather is not the same thing as climate. Single weather events such as Typhoon Haiyan or Hurricane Sandy, which wreaked havoc on the U.S. East Coast in 2012, cannot definitively be attributed to climate change. But scientists who study climate patterns over longer periods of time predict that extreme weather will increase in the future as a consequence of the rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Climate-change skeptics still dispute that, but atmospheric greenhouse gases are undoubtedly rising. And the pope has made it clear who he thinks is responsible for the increase.

“Mostly, in great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face,” he said in a press conference during his flight to the Philippines. “We have in a sense taken over nature.”

It is perhaps not surprising that the man who took the name Francis when he was elected pope—after Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment—would make environmental issues a priority of his papacy.

“He’s changed the tone of the conversation within the church and gotten the attention of people who might not have paid attention to this issue,” said Paolo Galizzi, a clinical professor at Fordham Law School who specializes in international environmental law and human rights.

But what in the pope’s background and training accounts for this dedication? And what can be expected when his encyclical is issued, probably in the early summer?

One place to look for the source of the pope’s dedication to environmental issues is in his training as a Jesuit, according to Chris Lowney, FCRH ’81, GSAS ’81, author of Pope Francis: Why He Leads the Way He Leads (Loyola Press, 2013). Lowney notes that one of the spiritual exercises that originated with Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, is to “find God in all things.”

“I can easily see how the pope’s Jesuit formation reinforces the idea that we are stewards of God’s creation and that God is somehow present in all of creation,” said Lowney, a former Jesuit seminarian and investment banker who now chairs the board of Catholic Health Initiatives. “So, therefore, we have a duty to look after it responsibly.”

Christiana Peppard, PhD, assistant professor of theology, science, and ethics at Fordham, agrees that Francis’ devotion to nature has a theological basis, but it also has an ethical component based on who’s responsible for environmental problems—and who suffers most from the impact of those problems.

“Climate change, which is driven predominantly by highly developed states like the U.S., tends to disproportionately affect the poor,” said Peppard, author of Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis (Orbis Books, 2014). “And they didn’t cause the problem in the first place.”

The Inequality of Climate Change

Although in recent years China has become the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the bulk of the greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the atmosphere were the product of the industrialized nations of Europe and, especially, America. Yet many of the countries that will be hit hardest by the effects of climate change are developing nations where large swaths of the population live in poorly built housing and the infrastructure to resist or respond to disasters is rudimentary at best.

“If you are living on a dollar a day or less, it’s very difficult to deal with everyday realities such as feeding your family, let alone things like flooding that’s caused by climate change,” said Galizzi.

Josh Kyller sees this challenge play out daily in his work as the emergency coordinator for Catholic Relief Services on the Philippine islands of Leyte and Samar, where he oversees a staff of about 300 people working to help residents rebuild their lives. He recites the grim statistics of Haiyan’s destructive power in the area: Thousands perished, and 10 million people were displaced.

The outpouring of international relief and Filipinos’ eagerness to rebuild has led to significant progress in the recovery, but Kyller and his staff are still helping 100,000 households in efforts to rebuild homes, provide clean water and proper sewage, and reduce exposure to future disasters.

“Tacloban is a kind of boom town,” said Kyller, a 2011 graduate of Fordham’s IPED program, who was with Schwalbenberg and his students at the pope’s Mass in January. “But there’s still a long road ahead.”

Concern for the poor and vulnerable has been a constant theme in Pope Francis’ life. But his positions are not that different from those of his immediate papal predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who wrote extensively about poverty and economic justice, according to Peppard, although Americans may not associate them as strongly with such issues because of the U.S. church’s focus on the pontiffs’ positions on reproduction and other social issues.

“Pope Francis’ teachings are not new. They’re being articulated anew by him,” she said. “But no one has written an encyclical focused on the environment. That is new.”

Schwalbenberg said that the pope is likely to link environmental degradation and economic justice in a way his predecessors did not. “I think Francis’ emphasis will be to wed the environment very tightly to a preferential treatment for the poor.”

As for the expertise that will underpin the encyclical, Francis is likely to draw on the information presented at a four-day workshop on sustainability issues that was held at the Vatican last May and brought together several dozen scientists, theologians, philosophers, and economists, including four Nobel laureates. He is expected to issue his encyclical in June or July because he wants to increase the odds that it will make an impact on the next round of international climate negotiations, which will take place in Paris in November.

The Pope’s Political Critics

Although the exact contents of the papal letter are not known, that has not stopped what Peppard calls preemptive criticism of the encyclical, prompted at least in part by the pope’s occasionally sharp remarks about what he has called “unfettered free-market capitalism.”

Last fall, for example, he addressed a global group of grassroots organizers, saying that an economic system centered only on money would “plunder nature” to sustain “frenetic” levels of consumption. “Climate change, the loss of biodiversity, deforestation are already showing their devastating effects … from which you, the humble, suffer the most.”

Taken as a whole, his critics say, Francis’ views amount to socialism at best, communism at worst. In their view, the free market, far from being the source of inequality, is the great engine that will pull the world’s poor out of misery.

“Pope Francis—and I say this as a Catholic—is a complete disaster when it comes to his public policy pronouncements,” Stephen Moore, chief economist of the Heritage Foundation, has written. “On the economy, and even more so on the environment, the pope has allied himself with the far left and has embraced an ideology that would make people poorer and less free.”

The encyclical and Francis’ addresses to the United Nations and U.S. Congress, both of which are set to take place in September, are unlikely to persuade conservative critics such as Moore or deeply entrenched climate-change skeptics such as Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who last February brandished a snowball in the Senate chamber to dramatize the cold winter in the nation’s capital, decrying what he called the “hysteria” about global warming.

“If the overwhelming science hasn’t been able to persuade you, I am not sure what else can happen to convince you that climate is a problem,” said Galizzi. “Having said that, the encyclical has the potential to reach people who don’t pay attention to these issues.”

Schwalbenberg agrees. He cites the example of a Connecticut businessman he knows, whom he describes as “a very devout Catholic” who’s not interested in the environment. “But because the pope is talking about it, he’s going to think about it.”

An Expansive View of Life

Theologically, the encyclical could also be a way to redefine what constitutes a “life” issue for the Catholic Church.

“It will be an opportunity to see that there’s more at stake in Catholic ethics in the 21st century than reproduction, abortion, and euthanasia,” Peppard said. “If the church is concerned about life, that need not be a selective lens.”

But what about results, such as a firm commitment by the nations of the world to reduce greenhouse emissions when they meet in Paris?

Given the complexities of getting so many countries, with their varying national interests, to agree on anything, the odds may not be in Francis’ favor. On the other hand, he is a singular figure, the leader of a worldwide institution with 1.2 billion members but no national interests to defend, no reelection campaign to wage.

“He has won great credibility by his example of humility and his reputation as a truth-teller who speaks plainly. So few politicians nowadays can speak with that same credibility,” said Lowney. “He would seem as well-positioned as anyone to win a hearing for the issue of how we steward the Earth.”

—Stevenson Swanson is a freelance journalist who has written about religion, the United Nations, and the environment, among other topics.

He is serving as a pro bono consultant for the joint program developed by the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration and Ghana’s Mountcrest University College. The program is under review by Ghana’s National Accreditation Board.

With Fordham, Galizzi also runs several programs in Ghana, including a soon-to-be-launched clerkship for the judicial system that will be open to Fordham graduates. Through the Leitner Center he directs two clinics: Sustainable Development Legal Initiative (SDLI) and the International Law and Development in Africa (ILDA). He also directs the Law School’s Ghana summer program.

“I believe there is a significant market for Fordham and its graduates in Africa,” Galizzi said. “It is an often overlooked continent, too often known only for negative reasons. There is a lot that is positive happening in Ghana and I believe Fordham should be at the forefront of it.”

While there are good law doctoral programs elsewhere in Africa, there are none in Ghana, he said—even though most Ghanaian law schools require a PhD to teach, forcing candidates to emigrate. Besides the personal burden of requiring law students to leave their professional and personal relationships behind, their research also gets exported.

“The idea of having a local PhD insures that there is local research and local supervision to develop the expertise,” he said. “For example there is no way to study environmental law in Ghana right now. You can do it here in the United States, but that’s not going to help them.”

The country’s stability and technological innovations make Ghana a place to take advantage of now, he said. And the legal system in Ghana is as good on paper as in the United States, with a very strong constitution that provides for the separation of powers and guarantees human rights.

“The problem is the implementation of the laws, but that’s a challenge we face here as well,” he said.

He compared the overcrowding at Rikers Island caused by a backlog of unheard cases to problems in Ghanaian prisons.

“The backlog problem in the U.S. is clearly resource-constrained, but they’re nothing compared to the challenges in Ghana,” said Galizzi, where there are 3,000 to 5,000 cases awaiting trial, sometimes for up to 10 to 15 years.

Through ILDA, Galizzi and Fordham law students have intervened on behalf of prisoners in through the Access to Justice Project. Fordham students work with Ghanaian lawyers to help to reconstruct prisoners’ case files and work with the judicial system to get the cased heard and those with expired warrants released.

Galizzi acknowledged an increased interest in Africa’s development by several nations. However, efforts by schools like Fordham to get involved still have an edge.

“In the educational sphere, American universities have a terrific reputation,” he said. “That bears heavily on the types of relationships that African universities want to establish.”

He said that Americans should remember the scars of Africa’s colonial past.

“If you go in and say what is good and what is bad, you usually get rejection because they know the problems they have,” he said. “It’s more of an exchange to see how we can assist.”

“Rather than the idea of exporting values, I prefer to say we share common ideals that can enrich both of us.”

But for that to happen, the political alignment needs to change radically, he said on Oct. 13 in a lecture on the Lincoln Center campus.

Galizzi, the director of the Sustainable Development Legal Initiative at Fordham, appeared as part of a lecture series sponsored by the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs.

In his talk, Galizzi detailed the origins of the international community’s response to climate change—from the first framework treaty in 1992, which the United States signed, to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which it did not.

“The objective is not to stop climate change, because that is not feasible. But what you can do is reduce its impact so that changes occur in a way that is manageable,” he said.

Three principles are at the core of the international approach to climate change:

• common but differentiated responsibilities;

• precaution; and

• sustainable development.

The first principle indicates that all countries have an obligation to change, but not every nation bears the same amount of responsibility or has the same capability to respond.

“Consider Burundi, a very poor land-locked country in Eastern Africa. How can you ask them to help solve this problem?” he said.

“This principle is about fairness, and who pays for problems that are global problems. But as you’ve probably seen these days, the idea of what is fair and who pays for what is not always easy to define.”

The second principle, precaution, draws the most opposition in the United States because the premise is that even if you are only 90 percent certain that human behavior is causing climate change, you should act on it.

“Nobody can tell you with certainty that the sea level will rise by one meter in New York City on Dec. 1, 2025,” Galizzi said. “What people can tell you is that it is very likely going to happen at a certain stage.”

The third principle, which focuses on sustainable development, divides poor and rich countries because the former insist that they should not be forced to slow their attempts at creating better lives for their citizens.

“How can you tell people who live on less than a dollar a day, who don’t have energy, access to water or transportation, that they do not have the right to aspire to what we take for granted?” Galizzi asked.

Sorting out differences among countries is essential because global warming will affect everyone on the planet. Hurricanes, typhoons, floods and other forms of severe weather that are expected to increase will not differentiate between nations that cut back on carbon emissions and those that did not.

But nothing will improve unless legislators in the United States agree that climate change is, indeed, happening. Although virtually no serious scientist will deny that the Earth’s climate is changing, Galizzi said that the number of skeptics is increasing.

“If you go to 100 doctors and 98 say that you have a disease, and two tell you that this particular disease doesn’t exist, who are you going to trust? The 98, or the two?” he asked.

But for Ghana’s Legal Aid Scheme, such equipment can mean the difference between an innocent client being set free or being wrongly sentenced to prison.

Ghana Legal Aid Director Seini (above) tests a new laptop; the equipment (below) was donated by the Leitner Center. (Photos courtesy of Paolo Galizzi)

That is why, on June 27, a group of law school students and alumni from Fordham University’s Leitner Center for International Law and Justice made a $8,300 gift to Legal Aid Scheme Ghana of ten computers and printers, and two laptops—one of the largest philanthropic gifts the agency has ever received.

Prior to the donation, the public defender of the nation’s poor had been operating with just a couple computers in its headquarters and none in its remaining nine regional offices, said Fordham Law School Professor Paolo Galizzi.

“In a country where there are still many people living on less than $1 a day, these computers represent a rather significant amount,” said Galizzi, clinical associate professor of law and director of the Leitner Center’s Sustainable Development Legal Initiative (SDLI).  “As incredible as it seems, it is an equipment increase of 600 percent, one that means that all the ten offices of the Legal Aid Scheme will now have at least one computer and one printer on which to better serve those in need.  The two laptops will further increase the ability of Legal Aid to carry out their work in the field and better serve their clients.

“Think about how our own work would be so much more difficult if we had to write everything by hand,” he added.

Following a study visit to Ghana last fall, law students Corolyn Houston, Felice Segura, Diana Schaffner, Anne Kelsey, Ayinde Sawyer and Erin Miles organized a fundraiser for the computers after witnessing the challenging conditions the legal aid lawyers had to work under. They successfully raised $4,150 and subsequently received a generous matching gift from James Leitner, LAW ’82.

The June 27 donation ceremony attracted local news coverage and the equipment was received by Supreme Court Justice William Atuguba, chairman of the board of the Legal Aid Scheme. Al-Hassan Yahaya Seini, director of Legal Aid, expressed gratitude on behalf of the persons who will actually be using the equipment.

“The effort will go a long way to facilitate access to justice for the pure and vulnerable in Ghana, and [to]include them in the constitutional governance,” he said.

The Leitner Center works to promote global social justice initiatives by encouraging knowledge of and respect for international law and international human rights standards. Through the Center, four of the students recently partnered with Ghana Legal Aid on a clinical project on prisoners remanded in custody.

“We decided they deserve our support,” said Galizzi.