Treaty Accountability

Properly written treaties usually solve the problems they were intended to fix. However, Treaties must be carefully written in order to limit “loopholes.”

To make an arms control treaty successful the participating countries should keep an interest and a desire to abide by the terms of the treaty. When a country no longer desires the terms of a treaty they try to work around the limitations of the treaty. To make a treaty effective, the writers of that treaty must make sure that there are no loopholes or contradictions within the treaty. There should also be an enforcement of violations against the treaty so countries would most likely abide by the rules and limitations of the treaty.

If the US Supreme Court finds that a treaty violates the US constitution, the US would no long bind itself to a treaty under US law. The same treaty, however, would still be bind with the US under international law, unless its unconstitutionality was manifestly obvious to the other states at the time the treaty was contracted. It has been argued by the foreign governments and by international human rights advocates that many of these US reservations are so vague that they may be invalid, for they do not know what is unconstitutional. Also a treaty may 'self-execute' itself in which the treaty would need a party to put the treaty and all of its obligations in action. A treaty may need 'implementing legislation', meaning that they would need a change in domestic law of the state party and to help the treaty to fulfill its obligations. It is often unclear if a treaty is 'self-executed' or is in of need of 'implementing legislation'. This causes arguments within a government over a treaty, for a government would need to make a change in domestic law to save a treaty when it’s 'self-executing' itself.

To strengthen treaties all countries should tell what they want in the treaty and that all countries should make sure that the treaty does not contradict one of their national laws.

Castroville Texas Critical Issues Forum 2006 Benchmark resposne