Why has the international community done such a poor job of drafting treaties?

[Beagle]

*Originally posted by SuaSponte *
**For the same reason the Constitution is so “poorly drafted” - treaties, particularly multilateral treaties, are compromises between conflicting interests.

Sua **

Exactly. For similar reasons the scope of, and language in, treaties inevitably lead to reasonable disputes.

Originally posted by Collounsbury
It indicates that
(a) post-Cold War the US has drifted toward unilateralism in policy
(b) The US has not seen said treaties to be in its overall interest
© The majority of the international community has disagreed with the American analysis
(d) US versus rest-of-world perceptions of interests seem to be diverging. **

Can you please supply evidence for these four points?

Not speaking for Collounsbury, but most of these points are proven true by simply looking at the treaties in the OP. Throw in the land mine treaty which we could not sign in order to keep our landmines near the North Korean border. Not arguing that point -just noting that we “diverged.”

[jshore]

*Originally posted by december *
Treaties like Law of the Sea and Kyoto are worthless to all, once the US and other leading powers fail to sign on.

(1) They are not worthless although their usefulness is surely decreased.

(2) Who are the other “leading powers” in the case of Kyoto? Most of the others have signed on. The only other leading powers that it is believed may not sign on are Canada and Australia…and this may be in part because of the U.S.'s lead.

In my opinion december, you are making a very compelling argument…But the argument is for voters in the U.S. to consider more carefully who they elect and not for the international community to write treaties better. The current administration seems to be completely disinterested in any treaties that involve any sort of compromise on the part of the U.S.—“My way or the highway!” The fact that this nation under the current administration is behaving like a 3-year-old is no reason to start blaming the treaty writers!

[december]

*Originally posted by jshore *In my opinion december, you are making a very compelling argument…But the argument is for voters in the U.S. to consider more carefully who they elect and not for the international community to write treaties better. The current administration seems to be completely disinterested in any treaties that involve any sort of compromise on the part of the U.S.—“My way or the highway!” The fact that this nation under the current administration is behaving like a 3-year-old is no reason to start blaming the treaty writers!

Yes, I am aware that this POV has considerable support here. The OP was intentionally designed to look at the situation from the opposite direction.

Beagle

Originally posted by Collounsbury
It indicates that
(a) post-Cold War the US has drifted toward unilateralism in policy
(b) The US has not seen said treaties to be in its overall interest
© The majority of the international community has disagreed with the American analysis
(d) US versus rest-of-world perceptions of interests seem to be diverging.

Not speaking for Collounsbury, but most of these points are proven true by simply looking at the treaties in the OP. Throw in the land mine treaty which we could not sign in order to keep our landmines near the North Korean border. Not arguing that point -just noting that we “diverged.”

I agree with your point, Beagle. However, note that you (and perhaps Collounsbury) are equating foreign policy with treaty participation. If one looks more broadly at foreign policy, one notices that the US has been the leading particpant in dealing with problems in the former Yugoslavia, despite the European location. The US has also been the leader in dealing with problems in the Middle East and Afghanistan. It’s no biggie, but the US brokered an agreement today between Spain and Morocco, dealing with some tiny island.

Looking at “policy” even more broadly, US business has been more and more international.

chula, your point about the widspread ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is well taken. Still, ratification is a minimum standard for treaty effectiveness. Time will tell how much good CEDAW actually does. IMHO it’s bound to do some good. Still, CEDAW a different sort of agreement than, say, NATO. CEDAW is more like an agreement to behave in moral fashion, rather than the formation of an alliance against a common enemy.

[tomndebb]

one notices that the US has been the leading particpant in dealing with problems in the former Yugoslavia, despite the European location. The US has also been the leader in dealing with problems in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Can you show us how to get to this alternate universe you inhabit?

The U.S. did not “lead” anything in the former Yugoslavia. We were dragged, kicking and screaming into the fray, at which point we declared that we owned all the good bats and gloves so everyone had to play our way. Now, this may have ultimately been a good thing (and I think the reluctance of the European governments to engage their problem without our help does not speak well of them) but this can not be considered “leadership” by any use of the word in English. (And please do not hide behind your use of the phrase “leading participant.” The rest of the paragraph indicates that you are talking genuine leadership.)

The U.S. resolutely ignored Afghanistan (after providing the predecessors to the Taleban with most of the anti-Russian weapons) until we were forced to intervene because of an attack on our soil. Leadership?

Over the last 30 years, the U.S. has taken a role of leadership–sporadically–in the Arab-Israeli conflicts–generally when the U.S. administration felt that further inaction would endanger Israel. Hardly a resounding vote for general leadership, there, either.

[chula]

*Originally posted by december *
chula, your point about the widspread ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is well taken. Still, ratification is a minimum standard for treaty effectiveness. Time will tell how much good CEDAW actually does. IMHO it’s bound to do some good. Still, CEDAW a different sort of agreement than, say, NATO. CEDAW is more like an agreement to behave in moral fashion, rather than the formation of an alliance against a common enemy.

The question you posed was “why are treaties so poorly drafted, that the United States cannot sign on to them,” not “why are they not more effective.” The fact that nearly every other country in the world has ratified CEDAW is evidence that it is not poorly drafted and that the US does not feel the need to cooperate with the rest of the international community. Part of the answer to why it is so ineffective is that the world’s most powerful country has not felt the need to support it.