Ukraine: UK Policy

Lord Verdirame Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am grateful to have been allowed to speak briefly in the gap. I declare an interest: I am acting as counsel pro bono for Ukraine in proceedings against the Russian Federation in the ECHR.

I will focus on a specific but very important consequence of the changes in American policy towards Ukraine that are playing out before us. NATO allies closest to Russia—the Baltic states, Finland and now Poland—are reconsidering their membership of certain conventional weapons agreements, such as the 1997 Ottawa treaty on landmines and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. Russia is not a party to these treaties, and nor is China. The US did not join because it did not want to put itself at a military disadvantage against potential adversaries. Britain and nearly all European powers joined because we felt safe under the American umbrella. The impact of Pax Americana was such that, probably for the first time in history, the weaker gave up weapons that their much stronger neighbour was still holding on to.

There is now talk of deploying British troops to Ukraine. I have some concerns, but, if the Government are serious about this, should they not consider whether we can continue to afford legal limits on conventional weaponry, to which we agreed under very different assumptions? Somewhat alarmingly, Prime Minister Tusk has also referred to non-conventional weapons. If we do not act fast enough, through diplomacy, as the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, suggested, but also by strengthening our conventional deterrence, do the Government share my concern that the far more fundamental legal architecture for our security, which goes back to the Cold War—the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in particular—could be in danger?