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The United States and International Law: Paradoxes of Support across Contemporary Issues
Edited by Lucrecia García Iommi and Richard W. Maass
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The United States spearheaded the creation of many international organizations and treaties after World War II and maintains a strong record of compliance across several issue areas, yet it also refuses to ratify major international conventions like the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Why does the U.S. often seem to support international law in one way while neglecting or even violating it in another? The United States and International Law: Paradoxes of Support across Contemporary Issues analyzes the seemingly inconsistent U.S. relationship with international law by identifying five types of state support for international law: leadership, consent, internalization, compliance, and enforcement. Each follows different logics and entails unique costs and incentives. Accordingly, the fact that a state engages in one form of support does not presuppose that it will do so across the board. This volume examines how and why the U.S. has engaged in each form of support across twelve issue areas that are central to 20th- and 21st-century U.S. foreign policy: conquest, world courts, war, nuclear proliferation, trade, human rights, war crimes, torture, targeted killing, maritime law, the environment, and cybersecurity. In addition to offering rich substantive discussions of U.S. foreign policy, their findings reveal patterns across the U.S. relationship with international law that shed light on behavior that often seems paradoxical at best, hypocritical at worst. The results help us understand why the United States engages with international law as it does, the legacies of the Trump administration, and what we should expect from the United States under the Biden administration and beyond.
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
One. The United States and International Law
Part I: Governing International Relations
Two. Enforcing Territorial Integrity
Three. The United States and the International Court of Justice
Four. Between Formalism and Instrumentalism
Five. The United States and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime
Six. The United States and International Trade Law
Part II: Governing Individuals
Seven. Human Rights Treaties in the United States
Eight. The United States and the International Criminal Court
Nine. The Double Life of Uncle Sam
Ten. Contemporary U.S. Targeted Killing
Part III: Governing the Globe
Eleven. “Exceptional” Leadership
Twelve. Leader or Laggard?
Thirteen. The United States and Cybersecurity Due Diligence
Fourteen. Understanding U.S. Support for International Law