The United States and International Law: Paradoxes of Support across Contemporary Issues

Review
“The United States and International Law is a superb, systematic, and insightful exploration of one of the most fundamental questions of world order: whether, how, and why the U.S. does—or does not—support the rule of international law. Iommi and Maass provide an elegant framework for analysis, and their excellent team of expert contributors explores the ambivalent relationship of the U.S. to international law in areas as diverse as war, trade, human rights, the environment, and the law of the sea.”
—Mark Pollack, Professor of Political Science and Law, Temple University -- Mark Pollack
“A welcome new contribution to the existing literature on the puzzle of the apparently hypocritical and mixed attitude and actions of the U.S. in respect of international law.”
—Shirley Scott, Professor of International Law and International Relations, UNSW Canberra -- Shirley Scott
“This excellent volume is a sophisticated analysis of what support for international law means and when and why the U.S. provides it. The result is an invaluable tool for those seeking to increase not only U.S. support for but U.S. leadership in international law in addressing threats from aggression to climate change.”
—Mary Ellen O’Connell, Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame -- Mary Ellen O'Connell
“. . . a rich and timely contribution to our understanding of U.S. interactions with international law. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and international responses to it, highlight the key role of the United States in applying international law to world politics. The book assesses the range of U.S. relationships with international law across multiple substantive issues and with an analytical framework that lends coherence to the complex whole.”
—Wayne Sandholtz, Professor of International Relations and Law, University of Southern California -- Wayne Sandholtz
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.