CANCELED: Neutral No More? Austria’s Neutrality in the Face of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

UW Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia (CREECA) lecture series, Room 206. Coffee/tea and cookies at 3:45 pm.

Dec. 1 update: We regret that the CREECA lecture scheduled for December 4, 2025 by Benedikt Harzl on the topic “Neutral No More? Austria’s Neutrality in the Face of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine” has been canceled, due to speaker illness. We apologize for any inconvenience and will explore options for rescheduling this talk for a future semester.

This was to be the final talk of our fall 2025 Thursday lecture series. We’re still working on a program for spring 2026, so please check back on our website (creeca.wisc.edu) in the New Year for next semester’s slate of lectures.

media release: This lecture will explore selected legal and political questions concerning Austria’s constitutionally enshrined principle of “perpetual neutrality.” It examines both authoritative and scholarly Soviet and post-Soviet interpretations in this regard, particularly in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The presentation further aims to bridge the official Russian and Soviet interpretations in regard to Austria and those relating to the current “neutralization demand” vis-à-vis Ukraine, emphasizing that the concept of neutrality, as understood by Russia, is not necessarily congruent with the normative core of this principle.

Benedikt C. Harzl is the deputy director of the Centre for East European Law and Eurasian Studies of the Law Faculty of the University of Graz. He is general editor of the journal Review of Central and East European Law and the book series Law in Eastern Europe (Brill Nijhoff). He is the author of Secessionist Entities: The South Caucasus Disputes between Self-Determination, Territorial Integrity, and Quest for a European Engagement Policy (Brill Nijhoff, 2025), co-editor of Unrecognized Entities: Perspectives in International, European and Constitutional Law (Brill Nijhoff, 2022) as well as Diversity Management in Russia (Routledge, 2013).

This lecture is co-sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Global Legal Studies Center