The UN, Treaties, and Power Politics

What does the UN actually do? Does it prevent conflicts? Not exactly. Does it solve refugee crises? Perhaps - if you really use your imagination. Does it guide the agenda for discussions in other international organizations? Not quite. Does the UN have the power to do these things? Yes and no.

One aspect of its duties the UN does attempt to invoke is its ability to instigate various international treaties. How effective are these treaties? Sadly, not very when interpretation of particular provisions extends to sources extraneous to the member states. One example of this is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which the US Senate rejected in 1999. Blasted for "reactionary" politics by those states who did sign the CTBT, three years later the US rejection seems another case of much ado about not much.

The CTBT contains several provisions that directly conflict with future development of the US nuclear program. In respect of armaments, rejecting the treaty placed the US among those rogue state it often condemns for their failure to respect international law. To what extent do diplomats believe those states who signed CTBT will comply with its obligations? Truth be told, the list of states who say no to CTBT is longer than the US and the rogue states. The mere act of signing a treaty does not bind a state to its terms. The state is only bound to comply with the treaty when the state goes through the deliberative act of ratifying the treaty, and very few states have actually ratified CTBT. Many years elapse from the time the treaty is presented in final form and the requisite number of instruments of ratification are received. By the time all the instruments of ratification are collected, new technology has made the weapons the treaty was meant to regulate obsolete as more precise and deadly weapons replace them.

Rejecting the CTBT and other treaties raises another issue for theoretical and intellectual contemplation: CTBT opponents assert that its required inspections make the treaty unconstitutional for the US to ratify. This is intellectually intricate terrain since the US Constitution specifically includes treaties among the facets that comprise the supreme law of the land. Hence the query: If treaties are the supreme law of the land, can a treaty be unconstitutional? Opponents argued that because CTBT gave multinational investigative commissions control of various duties of the US armed forces, CTBT usurped the role of the President as Commander-in-Chief. The validity of such theoretical analysis is not pertinent to discern the complexity of the situation that evolved after the Senate rejected the CTBT. It is included simply as a segue to the next treaty trap: the role of those entangling alliances.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic