Is the U.S. truly committed to world peace
and other beneficent global objectives?
Written by Eddi Bellando
Art by Mark R. Taylor
The United States seems to have a love-hate relationship with international law. While it has driven the creation of major international institutions and treaties, it has also done much to undermine them.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the architects of the United Nations – even creating the institution’s name. He made sure that leading Republicans were on-board and considered the United Nations his most important legacy. At the end of June 1945, the U.N. Charter was signed in San Francisco by 50 nations, including the U.S. By an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote (82 to 2), the U.S. Senate ratified the Charter on July 28, 1945. President Harry Truman signed the ratification papers on August 8, making the U.S. the first government to complete the ratification process. However, the U.S. has not ratified or even signed some of the major international treaties seeking to protect children, women and the environment.
Crucial Differences
There are significant differences between signing and ratifying a document. Signing expresses agreement with the terms of the treaty and the intention to comply with them – but is not legally binding. Ratification signifies being legally bound by the treaty. Treaties are signed by a country’s representative, but ratification is done by the constitutionally appropriate authority – in the U.S., the Senate.
The U.S. has not ratified the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, which has been ratified by 189 countries (the U.S. signed it in 1980); the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by all other U.N. member countries (the U.S. signed it in 1995); and the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by all other U.N. member countries (the U.S. signed it in 2009). The U.S. has not ratified – or even signed – many disarmament treaties, such as the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, ratified by 162 countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.
On the other hand, the U.S. has ratified key treaties, including the 1948 Genocide Convention, the 1965 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, the 1980 Inhumane Weapons Convention, the 1984 Convention against Torture, the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, and the 2000 Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. (A U.N. optional protocol is a standalone legal treaty that complements an existing parent treaty by adding extra procedures, enforcement mechanisms or substantive rights.)
Whys and wherefores
The reasons given for non-ratification are many. Regarding the Rights of the Child convention, the Senate expressed concern that it could weaken parental authority and the nuclear family. Opponents also fear that it could lead to mandatory paid maternity leave. The convention defines children as those below 18, while the United States permits the military recruitment of 17-year-olds. The convention prohibits the death penalty for people under 18; however, this became irrelevant in 2005 after the U.S. Supreme Court banned executing those under 18.
Regarding the Rights of Women convention, concerns have been raised about provisions on family planning, reproductive rights and gender-neutral work rules. Critics also say current federal and state laws already adequately prohibit gender discrimination, making ratification unnecessary.
One reason for overall low U.S. treaty participation is the nation’s own strict participation requirements. It is more difficult to ratify a treaty in the U.S. than in almost any other country. The U.S. Constitution states that the President “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur” (Article II, Section 2). Following consideration by the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Senate either approves or rejects a ratification resolution.
Other treaties rejected by the Senate include the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, ratified by 179 countries (the U.S. signed it), and the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, which sets global rules for the oceans (the U.S. did not even sign it). It has been ratified by 172 countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. It remains unratified by the Senate due to ongoing debates over national sovereignty and deep-seabed mining rights.
Pioneering efforts – and negative votes
This inconsistent attitude has to do with U.S. exceptionalism as well as the tension between the supporters of interventionism and isolationism throughout U.S. history. Famously, George Washington, in his 1796 farewell address, said that “it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world.”
President Woodrow Wilson was the leading architect of the first worldwide international organization, the League of Nations (founded in 1920), for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the U.S. never joined because when the Senate voted for ratification in 1920, the 49-35 tally fell short of the needed two-thirds majority. Most historians agree that the League operated far less effectively without U.S. participation, dissolving in 1946. The U.S. pioneered international human rights law when Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the committee that drafted the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet the U.S. has not ratified some of the major human rights treaties stemming from the Declaration.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations – a nonpartisan American think tank focused on U.S. foreign policy and international affairs – “one major reason is the fear of treaties infringing on national sovereignty. The U.S. shuns treaties that appear to subordinate its governing authority” to international bodies. This attitude is not in line with public opinion. According to a 2023 survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs – a nonpartisan American nonprofit organization designed to increase public knowledge of and engagement in international relations and global policy – the U.S. public is broadly in favor of the country’s participation in an array of treaties, ranging from the Paris Agreement on climate change to a potential agreement limiting the military use of artificial intelligence.
“Un-signing” Treaties
Aside from Israel, the U.S. is unique among democracies in “un-signing” treaties, which some see as weakening the international legal and security system.
During the Clinton administration, the U.S. signed the 1998 Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court, and during the George W. Bush administration stated that it did not intend to become a party to the treaty and had no legal obligations arising from its signature.
During the Obama administration, the country signed the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty, which seeks to set global standards for conventional arms transfers and to deny weapons to countries that violate human rights. The treaty has been ratified by 118 countries, including Canada, France, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. However, during the first Trump administration, the U.S. stated that it “has no legal obligation arising from its signature.”
Likewise, under Obama the U.S. signed the 2015 Paris Agreement, which seeks to hold the increase in global average temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The agreement has been ratified by 194 countries, including virtually all democracies. But under Trump, the U.S. withdrew its signature – the only country to do so. Under Biden, the U.S. again accepted the Agreement, and under Trump II withdrew it again.
Perhaps the most discussed case is the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which sought to limit the Iranian nuclear program in return for sanctions relief and other provisions. The United States was a major promoter of the deal, along with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union, and signed it in 2015. Under the first Trump administration, the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the deal. In response, the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom said that the Security Council’s endorsement remains the “binding international legal framework for the resolution of the dispute.”
The only other example of a democracy un-signing a treaty seems to be Israel, which signed the Statute of the Hague-based International Criminal Court in 2000; in 2002, it stated that it “has no legal obligation arising from its signature.”
Donation Diplomacy
Pursuing diplomatic service is one of the most challenging careers in all higher-ranked democracies. Most applicants to the U.S. Foreign Service must pass a rigorous exam, demonstrating knowledge of U.S. foreign policy, logical reasoning skills, aptitude for foreign languages and other abilities. Yet the U.S. stands out because many ambassadorial posts are filled not based on international experience and tests but on the size of donations made to politicians. Approximately 70 percent of ambassadorial appointments in the U.S. are given to career Foreign Service officers who rose through the ranks, but 30 percent are political appointees. Often the donor-ambassador does not speak the language of the country and may have never been there.
According to a 2023 report by the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, “every modern American President, from both major political parties, has appointed ambassadors who were wealthy political donors with limited or non-existent credentials for foreign service in what is called the donor-to-ambassador pipeline.” The title of the study is revealing: “The Donor-to-Ambassador Report. Why America’s Key Diplomats Are Often Wealthy Political Donors.”
The 2023 report stated, “. . . federal law explicitly stipulates that ‘contributions to political campaigns should not be a factor in the appointment’ of ambassadors . . .” The average size of campaign contributions from these political nominees has increased in recent decades, meaning that the “purchase price” of ambassadorial appointments has gone up.
The practice dates back at least to the 1950s. According to the nonprofit news organization Lawfare, “since the 1950s, presidents have consistently allocated roughly 30 percent of ambassadorial appointments to individuals who are not career diplomats. This practice, atypical among advanced democracies, [is] a recurrent source of controversy. . . . Occasionally, noncareer ambassador nominees are highly qualified experts who happen to have never served in the formal diplomatic corps, but they are the exception, not the rule.” It is also difficult for career Foreign Service officers to work with inexperienced, untrained counterparts.
Such appointments have involved not only tiny nations and sinecures. “Donor-ambassadors,” says the report, “have been appointed to be ambassadors to substantial global powers and some of the U.S.’s most important allies and neighbors, including the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Mexico.”
Some donor-ambassadors have proven so incompetent or unethical that the U.S. State Department was forced to investigate. The Obama-appointed ambassador to Luxembourg had no experience in diplomacy or foreign policy; she was a venture capitalist and theatrical producer who had donated to the Obama campaign and Democratic committees. She resigned as ambassador just before the State Department Inspector General released a report lambasting her performance.
Countries often complain, viewing unqualified U.S. ambassador appointments as a snub. Former diplomats recount a 2009 incident in which the head of Sweden’s Liberal Party bluntly asked the donor-ambassador appointed by Obama: “What qualifies you to be the U.S. ambassador to our country?” The French media have been scathing on the topic.
President George W. Bush appointed a car dealer as ambassador to the United Kingdom and an investment banker as ambassador to Italy. Both were large political fundraisers.
President Trump has been widely criticized for his ambassadorial choices, including the choice for Iceland of a dermatologist with no foreign policy experience. He appointed as ambassador to Turkey a former real estate developer, his ambassador to Belgium is the founder of a consulting firm, and his top representative in France is a convicted real estate developer and the father of his son-in-law. All of them have made the news because of their diplomatic faux pas.
Despite then-candidate Joe Biden promising in 2019 that “Nobody, in fact, will be appointed by me based on anything they contributed,” his non-career ambassador nominees and their spouses had given at least $22.5 million to Democratic committees during the decade prior to their nomination.
Biden’s appointee to Belgium, a generous political donor with no foreign policy experience, was running a hotel business out of South Florida prior to his nomination. Biden’s appointee as ambassador to the United Kingdom, a position first held by John Adams, was the CEO of an advisory firm and the wife of an investment bank CEO. Earlier, Obama had appointed her as ambassador to France. As the report points out, donor-ambassadors have been confirmed by the Senate in almost every instance.
Back to the drawing board . . . .
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Sources
https://treaties.un.org/pages/participationstatus.aspx
https://hrlibrary.umn.edu/research/ratification-USA.html
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/defying-convention/why-the-united-states-has-not-ratified-cedaw/E9B03497B53ECC36EC4C8AA3A1FD0B08
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/biases-and-vulnerabilities/juveniles/prior-to-roper-v-simmons
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/13/us/politics/kimberly-guilfoyle-resign.html
https://www.globaljusticecenter.net/u-s-aversion-to-international-human-rights-treaties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Clause
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_treaties_by_number_of_parties
https://www.state.gov/treaties-pending-in-the-senate
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/RejectedTreaties.htm
https://globalaffairs.org/commentary/blogs/americans-broadly-favorable-participating-international-agreements
https://www.cfr.org/articles/international-treaties-united-states-refuses-play-ball
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/21/ten-times-countries-decided-to-exit-international-agreements
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/troubling-trends-ambassadorial-appointments-1980-present
https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/DTA_Report_Final.pdf
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Eddi Bellando was born in Turin, Italy, in 1955, and worked as a journalist in Italy and as a writer/editor for the United Nations in Nairobi and New York. Eddi’s time at the U.N. included stints as an election monitor in El Salvador and the Central African Republic. Eddi recently earned his PhD in philosophy from Stony Brook University. This is Eddi’s fifth article for Supplement St. Louis (Yay, Eddi!).
Mark R. Taylor studied performance art to hone his storytelling skills while a graduate student at Savannah College of Art and Design. He now spends his time shuttling his kids around, teaching in a public school and finding ways to keep his love for stories alive using pencils, paints and anything else he can find. This is Mark’s (third project) for Supplement St. Louis. (You go, Baby!)