Articulating Arms Control Law in the EU’s Lethal Military Assistance to Ukraine

In response to the Russian Federation’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the Council of the European Union (EU Council) issued an unprecedented Decision (2022/338/CFSP) on Feb. 28, 2022 to finance and supply 450 million euros of lethal military assistance to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, an amount that was doubled in Decision (2022/471/CFSP) on Mar. 23, 2022. But in this rush to war, the EU’s stringent framework for arms control has received little scrutiny. In particular, the EU Council has not publicly articulated how it is accounting for long-term conflict risks in Ukraine, such as the diversion of weapons to Russia and to undesirable non-state armed groups; the post-conflict proliferation of small arms and light weapons and concomitant increases in transnational crime and regional instability; and even the potential for allegations of war crimes on the Ukrainian side against Russian prisoners-of-war, such as those that surfaced on Mar. 29, 2022. Articulating these risks in EU decision-making on Ukraine is essential to avoid sidelining the arms control framework in Europe, and to preserve global norms on arms control.