Examining the Practice and Recognizing the Objectives of the United States of America in Drafting, acceding to, and Withholding Membership in International Treaties

As one of the leading powers of the international system, the United States has played a prominent role in shaping and steering numerous international treaties and organizations. The historical experience of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries shows that the United States usually assumes an active—even founding—role in the early stages of drafting
and advancing key treaties, yet subsequently either declines to join them, accepts only conditional and limited membership, or even withdraws. This pattern raises fundamental questions concerning the United States’ real objectives on the international stage, its degree of commitment to rules of international law, and the impact of such policies on the principle of equality and the collective interests of the international community. The central problem addressed here is whether, behind a veneer of cooperation and lawfulness, the United States has in fact sought unilateral exploitation of others’ commitments while purposefully evading its own; and, if so, what mechanisms it has employed to achieve this goal and with what consequences for the international legal order. The primary aim of this study is to identify U.S. practices in drafting, acceding to, and withholding membership
in international treaties and to analyze the underlying objectives of such behavior. By examining salient cases—including the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Charter of the United Nations, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court—the research seeks to present a clear picture of U.S. behavioral patterns, to reveal linkages between this pattern and the United States’ overarching national strategies, and to assess the effects of such particularistic conduct on international law and global interests. Specifically, it asks, first, whether treaty-drafting in U.S. foreign policy functions as a means of constraining others without accepting reciprocal constraints, and, second, what countermeasures or policies other states might adopt in response. Methodologically, the study is descriptive–analytical with a historical–documentary approach. Data were collected from library sources, historical records, international legal scholarship, and official political statements. The analysis focuses both on comparative examination of documents and historical events (such as the formation of the League of Nations or negotiations over the U.N. Charter)
and on content analysis of U.S. official positions and statements to identify behavioral continuity and strategic objectives; inductive reasoning—from case studies to general conclusions—and logical analysis are used to explicate the relationship between declaratory acts and actual conduct. The League of Nations case shows that, despite its pivotal role in proposing the idea and drafting the Covenant, the United States ultimately refused formal membership on legal pretexts such as alleged incompatibility of the collective defense clause with the Constitution; historical evidence suggests that part of this opposition stemmed not from genuine legal concerns but from domestic partisan rivalries and the strategic aim of limiting others without accepting reciprocal limits. The result was the imposition of binding obligations on other states in disarmament and security cooperation while leaving the United States free of those constraints, even as it maintained indirect influence over League decisions. In the United Nations case, the United States, by accepting the veto alongside four other powers, effectively ensured its capacity to nullify any decision contrary to its interests, while also proposing the “Uniting for Peace” resolution so that, where others’ vetoes proved adverse, it could find an alternative
avenue to secure its aims—illustrating that mechanisms ostensibly intended to enhance organizational effectiveness may, in practice, serve a particular power’s interests. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides another instance: the United States played an active role in drafting and initially signed the Statute to shape the Court’s provisions and mechanisms, but then declined to transmit it to the Senate, formally “unsigned,” and refused to join—evincing instrumental use of the drafting process to mold an international institution without accepting its obligations. Comparative analysis of these three cases indicates a consistent policy line in U.S. foreign and legal conduct: encouraging other states to accept binding constraints, leveraging their committed status to advance national interests, and deliberately avoiding any obligation that would restrict U.S. maneuverability and strategic superiority. This approach manifests a form of “legal particularism,” wherein great powers—especially the United States—interpret and implement rules not as general and equal principles but as flexible tools for realizing their interests. The findings suggest that such a practice, beyond eroding trust in international institutions and treaties, fosters skepticism and diminishes weaker states’ incentives to honor international commitments, thereby seriously undermining international law’s effectiveness as a regulator of interstate behavior. The study argues that only through awareness-raising, building unified fronts among adversely affected states, and insisting on impartial oversight mechanisms can the negative consequences of this pattern be mitigated and the further entrenchment of particularistic legal regimes in international law be prevented.