Although President Donald Trump has portrayed the signing of the long-sought mineral agreement, granting the United States a share in Ukraine’s rare earth elements as
a diplomatic victory, achieved through persistent efforts and an unconventional diplomatic tone towards his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the agreement’s validity under international law remains highly questionable, irrespective of its political and economic ramifications.
In international law, the conclusion of inter- state treaties is fundamentally predicated on the contracting parties’ free will and sovereign equality. However, the pressures and threats exerted by the United States during the negotiation process have cast serious doubt on whether Ukraine agreed to its own free will on the minerals deal. This raises the highly specific legal issue of whether Ukraine may annul the agreement and seek to eliminate its effects on the grounds of coerced consent, thereby shifting the discussion from the realm of international relations into the domain of international law. In particular, the United States’ threat to suspend its massive military assistance to Ukraine-which, according to some, is the principal reason Kyiv has not yet ‘fallen’ to Moscow since 2022-prompted Ukraine, initially resistant, to return to the negotiating table and ultimately to sign an agreement containing significant advantages for the United States, in stark contrast to its earlier statements.
At this juncture, it becomes crucial to determine whether the threat to withhold aid constitutes a “use of force” under Article 52 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), potentially rendering the agreement void. Addressing this issue is of particular importance not only for the fate of the current mineral agreement but also as a precedent for similar cases that may arise in the future.
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