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Just published in the @jpube.bsky.social “The Impact of International Conflict on Cross-Border Commercial Dispute Resolution” with Dmitrii Shchetinin Do judges apply legal rules in the same way when relations between their countries break down? 1/12

We study this question in Russia and Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. We use a difference-in-differences design comparing the enforcement of Russian and Ukrainian decisions before and after the conflict with that of decisions from other countries. 2/12

Put simply, enforcement means that if a court in one country says someone must pay, a court in another country helps make that happen. 3/12

Here is what we find: 1️⃣ Enforcement of judgments and arbitral awards fell sharply After 2014, Ukrainian decisions became much less likely to be enforced in Russia, and the same pattern emerged for Russian decisions in Ukraine. 4/12

2️⃣ Courts made exceptional legal safeguards routine Courts increasingly relied on discretionary legal grounds, including public policy exceptions, to refuse enforcement. 5/12

3️⃣ Appeal courts did not solve the problem Even after appeal, the enforcement of Ukrainian decisions in Russia and Russian decisions in Ukraine remained significantly lower than before the conflict. 6/12

4️⃣ The financial stakes were substantial Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that, over 2014–2019, the decline in enforcement left approximately $100 million in Ukrainian claims and $180 million in Russian claims uncollected. 7/12

5️⃣ Enforcement is not insulated from global political events The results suggest that international conflict can weaken not only trade flows and diplomatic relations, but also the legal infrastructure that supports cross-border commerce. 8/12

This project was special for me for two reasons. It was my first project not based on administrative data, but on data extracted from legal documents, without which the paper would not have been possible. 10/12

Huge credit goes to my co-author Dmitrii, who led the work of assembling and coding these cases using court records from both countries in two languages. 11/12

It was also my first interdisciplinary project at the intersection of economics and empirical legal studies, and I learned a great deal from combining legal data and legal reasoning with an economics perspective. 12/12