International law is a subject that has long been a topic that citizens of the world have struggled to grasp since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. With the advent of international law created through this treaty, the first codified rules were put into place about how sovereign states interact with other sovereign states. In recent decades, however, an entirely new type of international law has come into common practice—transnational law. Rather than controlling dealings between two or more states, transnational law is a field that deals with how sovereign states deal with their own populace. Though it is impossible to pinpoint the first case of transnational law, the foundation of the United Nations marked the first time a country consented to an international treaty of this kind. The term was first used in 1956 to describe U.N. treaties codifying the treatment of minorities in Western European and North American countries. Since the 1950s, transnational law has only expanded into treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. As transnational law increases in quantity, its existence has become more controversial within the United States, prompting arguments and embittered attacks. If the problem of allowing international law to impact American domestic law is not solved quickly, then it could very well become the next hot topic of political attack, even cutting across domestic party lines.
Many American politicians argue that by allowing multinational groups to create laws that must be implemented domestically, the signatories to the treaty must necessarily give away some of their sovereignty to a supranational organization credited with creating the law. Is allowing a foreign body not elected by the American populace to create laws binding those citizens not destroying a democratic tradition that Americans are so proud of? This can easily be seen as a way of bypassing the level of accountability legislators have to the American public. Therefore, Congress should focus on creating laws that resemble treaties that they do not wish to sign on principle. In this way, the United States would still be able to guarantee rights to its citizens, but will not lose any sovereignty by allowing the government’s domestic actions to be accountable to a foreign body unelected by the American public.
Proponents of transnational treaties say that the arguments of their counterparts conveniently forget to mention the positive attributes of international law—many of which Americans reap the benefits from. For example, before the advent of modern transnational law, Americans could not travel or work abroad nearly as freely or easily as they are now able to. There are also the many rights and guaranteed freedoms that Americans are now able to enjoy when they travel abroad to consider, largely due to agreements between the United States and other states. Regardless of constitutional protests, international law and adherence to treaties to which the United States is a signatory is an American tradition as old as the Constitution and Founding Fathers themselves. Then, there are the strict guidelines by which the American Constitution sets up a binding adherence to an international treaty. The argument is that the United States takes a dualist approach to these kind of binding international agreements, wherein the democratically elected, and therefore accountable to the public, Congress must agree to a two-thirds majority vote in order to ratify said treaty. This is more than enough to keep laws impacting Americans democratic and in line with American values. Lastly, there is the fact that the United States has had a long history of encouraging other states to sign treaties or agreements guaranteeing their own citizens rights, or other cases of the United States interfering in another state’s domestic affairs. Does the United States have a right to demand this of other states if the American legislature is unwilling to do the same?
All of this ideological disagreement came to a head with the debate about the Senate ratification of the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. An American ambassador appointed by President Obama signed the convention, but the Senate failed to ratify it with a two-thirds vote. This decision was surrounded in controversy as President Obama urged the Senate to pass the bill, illustrating an American commitment to leading the world in equal liberties for all. Others argued, however, that this was simply an attempt by the President to give American sovereignty away to supranational organizations in order to pass a redundant law. Ultimately, transnational law is a seldom talked about issue in American politics today, but has the potential to be the next big point of contention throughout the country and the world.