The US Senate routinely blocks or delays ratification of multilateral treaties on sovereignty grounds, yet selective ratifications such as the Chemical Weapons Convention enabled the Syria chemical-weapons deal and the work of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Administrations have pursued “stealth multilateralism,” acting as if unbound treaties like the Law of the Sea or the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court were binding, providing practical support while avoiding formal Senate consent.

Persistent non-ratification of agreements such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and climate treaties, combined with the dismantling of arms-control pacts, leaves global challenges without the binding force only treaties can supply, awaiting a more constructive presidency.

The US Senate—usually the Republican members—rejects multilateral treaties as if it were a sport. Others it rejects through inaction—the Law of the Sea Treaty, for example, negotiated under President Jimmy Carter and fruitlessly pushed for ratification by every president since. Republicans justify their blocking tactics by arguing that such treaties threaten sovereignty.

However, after almighty struggles—it takes only one third of the Senate to block a treaty—the important nuclear arms treaties with the Soviet Union and Russia were ratified. So was the Convention against Torture, which Republican President Ronald Reagan successfully fought for but which President George Bush junior illegally ignored, without a........

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