The Lisbon Protocol to the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I) was signed in Lisbon on 23 May 1992 by Piotr Kravchanka for Belarus, Tuleutai Zhukeyev for Kazakhstan, Andrei Kozyrev for the Russian Federation, Anatolii Zlenko for Ukraine and James A. Baker III for the United States, in five copies, the Belarusian, English, Kazakh, Russian and Ukrainian texts being equally authentic. It is not START I itself, signed in Moscow on 31 July 1991, and it is not the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, a separate instrument.

The preamble reaffirms support for START I, recognises the altered political situation after the former USSR was replaced by independent states, and recalls the CIS members' commitment that the nuclear weapons of the former union would remain under the safe control of a single unified authority. The parties wished to facilitate implementation of the treaty in that situation. Article I: Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, as successor states of the former USSR in connection with the treaty, assume its obligations.

Article II requires the four to make among themselves the arrangements needed for the treaty's limits and restrictions, for verification to function equally throughout their territories, and for the allocation of costs, at framework level. Article III redefines, for implementation, the phrases "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" and "national territory"; inspection clauses are not transcribed here. Article IV: representatives of the four participate in the Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission on a basis consistent with Article I. Working languages: English and Russian.

Article V: Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine shall adhere, in the shortest possible time, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968 as non-nuclear-weapon states parties and shall begin immediately the action required by their constitutional practices. Article VI: each party shall ratify the treaty together with the protocol; the four successors exchange instruments of ratification with the United States; the treaty enters into force on the date of the final exchange. The protocol is an integral part of the treaty. The final exchange took place on 5 December 1994.

Accompanying letters from the presidents of Ukraine and Kazakhstan and from the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, issued around the signing, are not the protocol. Transfer of strategic arms from the three territories to the Russian Federation was completed, as a result, by the end of 1996. The Budapest Memorandum, signed on the day of entry into force, is a distinct political instrument of assurances, not a clause of the protocol. START ceilings, system catalogues and a disarmament handbook are not set out here.

Cover: Palácio das Necessidades in Lisbon, seat of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs; we do not claim the signing room. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Lisbon Protocol; Protocol to the START Treaty (Lisbon, FAS reproduction of the official text).