Budapest Memorandum

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The Budapest Memorandum was signed on December 5, 1994 in Budapest as part of the CSCE conference taking place there .

Content and background

In the memorandum , the United States of America , Great Britain and Russia committed themselves in three separate declarations to Kazakhstan , Belarus and Ukraine , in return for a waiver of nuclear weapons, to respect the sovereignty and the existing borders of the countries (Art. 1). Reference is made to the Helsinki Final Act .

Article 2 confirms the already existing obligation to abstain from violence and refers to the Charter of the United Nations as the basis for the use of force.

Article 3, with renewed reference to the Helsinki Final Act , obliges the signatory states to abstain from the exercise of economic coercion in order to subordinate the sovereign rights of Ukraine to their own interests for their own benefit. ( to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind );

Article 4 obliges the signatory states to involve the UN Security Council directly in support of Ukraine if it were threatened with nuclear weapons.

Article 5 obliges to abstain from the use of nuclear weapons as a whole.

Article 6 contains the promise to consult in the event of a conflict (“ will consult”).

The three signatory states came into possession of nuclear weapons in the course of the dissolution of the USSR , at which time Ukraine owned the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The Budapest Memorandum was a precondition for the signing and ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty . By 1996, all nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union were brought to Russia, which, as the “ continuation state ” of the USSR, has the right to own nuclear weapons.

The document was signed by all the countries concerned. China and France made their own statements on Ukraine's security guarantee. In addition, French President François Mitterrand wrote a personal letter on December 5, 1994.

Legal status of the memorandum

According to the recommendation of the US State Department , agreements, if they are more of a political declaration of intent, should as a rule be drafted so that they can be distinguished from internationally legally binding treaties on the basis of certain formal, stylistic and linguistic features: In the case of more political declarations of intent, it is recommended to use the term "parties" in the text as well as that of the "contract" in the title. With regard to actions, expressions such as “shall”, “agree” or “undertake” and “will” (the latter due to ambiguity) should be avoided. Instead, “should”, “intend to” or “expect to” should be preferred. The expression “come into force” should be avoided, as should a reference to “equal authenticity” (same legal validity of all language versions). At the end of the agreement there should be a disclaimer . A memorandum ( memorandum of understanding) is not always legally non-binding as such, so the legal character should be made clear.

On the basis of most of these characteristics, except for the disclaimer, the Treaty Law Organization characterized the memorandum as legally non-binding, contrary to a different understanding of the New York Times. Ron Synovitz of Radio Free Europe argued similarly in an explanatory commentary, citing the lawyer Barry Kellman, who however emphasized the complexity of the legally binding nature: The memorandum is binding under international law, but that does not mean that it has the means to enforce it. It does, however, refer to other contracts which, by themselves, guarantee the provisions of the memorandum.

The US embassy in Minsk announced in a press release in April 2013 that the United States is taking its commitments to Belarus seriously, even though the memorandum is not legally binding.

Effects

In the course of the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute at the turn of the year 2005/06, the Ukrainian government under President Viktor Yushchenko was considering, according to Der Spiegel , using the signatories of the memorandum to help Ukraine.

In the context of the Crimean crisis in 2014, the USA and Great Britain referred to the agreement and interpreted the Russian behavior in Crimea as non-compliance with the memorandum and a clear violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel made similar statements . Russia, for its part, interpreted "the threats from the EU and the US during the unrest in Kiev to impose sanctions on the Ukrainian government (under President Yanukovych)" and the later "recognition of the coup d'état in Kiev" as a breach of the obligations of the Budapest Memorandum .

Russia's failure to comply with the Budapest Memorandum, and in particular the annexation of Crimea, may jeopardize future nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament because it casts doubt on the reliability of the security guarantees given by great powers to states with nuclear weapons. Doubts about the reliability of such commitments could create incentives to keep nuclear weapons, to create new nuclear weapons programs or to accelerate existing programs. As the Memorandum repeats the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe , Russia's failure to comply with the Memorandum raises fundamental questions about the future of the international order.

Web links

Wikisource: Ukraine. Memorandum on Security Assurances  - Text of the Budapest Memorandum of December 5, 1994 (English)

Individual evidence

  1. Official title: Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine's Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
  2. Information from the OSCE
  3. a b Natalie Manaeva Rice, Dean P. Rice and Howard L. Hall: Ukraine At The Fulcrum: A Nuclear House Of Cards . In: International Journal of Nuclear Security 1, No. 1, 2015, pp. 1-19. doi: 10.7290 / V73R0QR9 .
  4. Mykola Riabchuk: Ukraine's Nuclear Nostalgia ( Memento of December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: World Policy Journal 26, No. 4, Winter 2009, pp. 95-105. doi: 10.1162 / wopj.2010.26.4.95 .
  5. UNTERM Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine's Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; Budapest Memorandum . Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved March 5, 2014.
  6. Volodymyr Vasylenko: On assurances without Guarantees in a "shelved document" , in: The December 15 of 2009.
  7. ^ Guidance on Non-Binding Documents. In: www.state.gov. Retrieved December 21, 2016 .
  8. ^ Treaty Law - Resources to study Treaty Law and International Law. In: www.treatylaw.org. Retrieved December 21, 2016 .
  9. Budapest Accord: a treaty? - Treaty Law. In: www.treatylaw.org. Retrieved December 21, 2016 .
  10. Explainer: The Budapest Memorandum And Its Relevance To Crimea. In: RadioFreeEurope / RadioLiberty. Retrieved December 21, 2016 .
  11. Belarus: Budapest Memorandum. United States Embassy in Minsk (Belarus) on April 12, 2013, archived from the original on April 19, 2014 ; accessed on April 19, 2014 (English, press release).
  12. Alexander Schwabe: Gas emergency: Ukrainians would rather freeze than give in. In: Spiegel Online . January 3, 2006, accessed March 24, 2014 .
  13. ^ Office of the Press Secretary: Readout of President Obama's Call with President Putin . whitehouse.gov. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  14. Washington Post Editorial Board: Condemnation isn't enough for Russian actions in Crimea . Washington Post. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  15. Chris Stevenson, Oscar Williams: Ukraine crisis: David Cameron joins Angela Merkel in expressing anxiety and warns that 'the world is watching'. The Independent , March 1, 2014, accessed March 23, 2014 .
  16. Ban Ki Moon: Crimean Crisis puts heavy strain on the nuclear non-proliferation agreement. Voice of Russia , March 24, 2014, accessed March 25, 2014 .
  17. Crimean crisis - Merkel: Russia violates international law. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 2, 2014, accessed on March 25, 2014 .
  18. Moscow accuses USA and EU of non-compliance with the Budapest Memorandum. RIA Novosti , March 19, 2014, accessed March 23, 2014 .
  19. ^ David S. Yost: The Budapest Memorandum and Russia's intervention in Ukraine . In: International Affairs 91, No. 3, May 2015, pp. 505-538. doi: 10.1111 / 1468-2346.12279 .
  20. ^ Mark Fitzpatrick: The Ukraine Crisis and Nuclear Order . In: Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 56, No. 4, 2014, pp. 81–90. doi: 10.1080 / 00396338.2014.941552 .