The Budapest agreement was a mere “memorandum of understanding”.
It was not a treaty.
There was no enforcement mechanism in the document.
It was only signed by the leaders of 3 countries, it was never endorsed by their legislative bodies.
To what degree can the president of united states bind later governments of the US with a mere signature on a signing agreement with foreign powers?
NOT AT ALL. Not even a little bit.
If they could, we’d all be bound by Kyoto right now, which also was merely signed by the President and never ratified (or even put to a vote) by congress. If they could, the USA could obligate USA foreign policy forever with a simple signature all over the place.
If you don’t understand why no one feels bound by the Budapest memorandum, it’s because you don’t understand the nature of it.
China and France later signed a significantly weaker version of the statement. You said Ireland signed it, they didn’t.
What do you think about NATO, including the USA bombing Serbia for 78 days from high altitude, killing many civilians? To force Serbia to give up territory it held for centuries. If the borders and invasion of Serbia were correct, then why not in Ukraine? If the border changes are so very wrong, then what about Serbia? Should they be given back their territory?
I don’t mention this to be some kind of wiseguy, I mention it because the precedent for the whole world has been changed with the forcible border changes in Serbia. There are situations all over the world, and throughout Europe, where portions of a country would like to be independent.
when pootypoot engaged in his “special military exercise” he OBVIOUSLY did not violate that agreement, so we are just as free to obviously not violate it in the same way with ‘special military exercise’ that actually DOES “respect the borders” per the agreement.