#Move over law series

Not only that, but Putin’s recent order to put Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces “on high alert” is a further repudiation of Russia’s assurances towards Ukraine, as it raises the spectre – no matter how distant – of a nuclear war.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today is an even more serious violation and effectively buries Russia’s assurances in the Budapest Memorandum. The government has not been as active or as visible on this issue as it could have been.

At the time, a committee of the UK House of Lords noted that:Īs one of the four signatories of the Budapest Memorandum (1994), which pledged to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the UK had a particular responsibility when the crisis erupted. The international response at the time was lacklustre – although the US and the UK did subsequently step up their efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces through training and provision of lethal defensive arms. Russia first broke its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum in 2014, with its annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine. And while that response was not explicitly defined, Pifer notes that: “there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine, and that would include lethal military assistance”. According to a former US diplomat who participated in the talks, Steven Pifer, it was understood that if there was a violation, there would be a response incumbent on the US and the UK. But the meaning of the security assurances was deliberately left ambiguous.

#Move over law series

The Budapest Memorandum consists of a series of political assurances whereby the signatory states commit to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”. China and France subsequently extended similar assurances to Ukraine, but did not sign the Budapest Memorandum. But when it became clear that the US was not willing to go that far, Ukraine agreed to somewhat weaker – but nevertheless significant – politically binding security assurances to respect its independence and sovereignty which guaranteed its existing borders. In exchange for giving up its nuclear arsenal, Ukraine initially sought legally binding guarantees from the US that it would intervene should Ukraine’s sovereignty be breached. All other countries are banned from developing a nuclear arsenal and those that have, including India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, are not parties to the NPT. The NPT is a legally-binding instrument that recognises only five countries as legitimate holders of nuclear weapons: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US. This enabled Ukraine to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear state. Under the terms of the memorandum, Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal – the world’s third-largest, inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union – and transfer all nuclear warheads to Russia for decommissioning. The memorandum was struck in 1994, following lengthy and complicated negotiations involving the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, US president Bill Clinton and the then British prime minister John Major. Putin’s decision to invade is in direct violation of the Budapest Memorandum, a key instrument assuring Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

As American international relations expert David Yost notes, Russia’s actions will weaken the credibility of major power security assurances, undermine the nuclear nonproliferation regime and dampen prospects for future disarmament. The unfolding invasion of Ukraine will have far-reaching repercussions that extend way beyond a breach of international law and a violation of the country’s territorial integrity.