The U.S. already has a problem honoring its international agreements. This would create one more obstacle to concluding those agreements in the first place.
Our Congress is barely able to choose the name for a new post office much less intervene in foreign policy. That gives us such embarrassments as Obama not submitting the JCPOA to the Senate since he knew the Israel lobby would shoot it down, thus making it easy for Trump to kill it. Of 18 international human rights treaties passed by the United Nations, the US has only ratified 5.
Subjecting international relations to our deeply partisan political process has already made it obvious to the world that the US cannot be trusted to meet any obligations or keep any promises it makes in a treaty. Of course, they should have been aware of that long ago but it's easier to keep up the facade.
Notice how this ever always only goes in one direction - that of war and of empire unfettered by any law. The president can more or less make war as he sees fit, but God help him if he tries to make peace.
While I agree that congressional oversight would make diplomacy much more difficult, the separation-of-powers argument against it is weak. The Founding Fathers did intend for the Senate to exercise some executive powers such as the ratification of treaties and confirmation of executive appointments. Unfortunately, the Constitution puts such important powers in the hands of a weak and unfit institution.
Interestingly, this reminds me of the old Bricker Amendment. The Bricker Amendment was a series of proposed Constitutional amendments championed by Ohio Senator John Bricker following World War II.
The Post-World War II era led to a significant amount of internationalism within the top levels of American government. This included many members of the Republican Party including Dwight Eisenhower, who was supportive of new international institutions like the United Nations and who supported many UN Conventions and Treaties. The rise in internationalism, however, led to backlash from members of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, which included many Republicans from the Midwest and Democrats from the South who favored a more isolationist foreign policy (not in the sense that the term is used as a smear now, but a more truly isolationist policy.)
To further the aims of the Conservative Coalition, Senator Bricker annually proposed a series of substantively similar amendments to the Constitution every year in the 1950s. These amendments came to become collectively known as the "Bricker Amendment." The Bricker Amendment would have required explicit Congressional approval for treaties and similar international agreements that were increasingly becoming negotiated by the President alone.
Back then, the arguments in favor of the Bricker Amendment were based on the idea that treaties and other international agreements would "threaten American sovereignty." One popular argument intended to appeal to provincial racists was that the UN Convention on Genocide would result in a scenario where a white motorist would accidentally strike and kill a black pedestrian and the United States would then be dragged before a UN panel who would then consider genocide charges. Similar arguments regarding the possibility of international bodies outlawing segregation were the most popular talking points for the Bricker Amendment at the time. One must note that the US is not a party to the International Criminal Court, in large part because America's foreign policy elites do not want the otherwise utterly powerless peoples of the countries we invade to be able to seek justice in court for the many crimes of the modern empire. Israel too, surprise surprise.
Funny enough, the article that Daniel has highlighted here seems to be making a different argument. This author wants to make it harder for the US to disengage from military occupations or reconstructions of foreign states, and knows that making such disengagement dependent on Congressional approval will ensure that like everything else that gets handed to Congress, it will end up dying of sclerotic partisan gridlock.
Our Congress is barely able to choose the name for a new post office much less intervene in foreign policy. That gives us such embarrassments as Obama not submitting the JCPOA to the Senate since he knew the Israel lobby would shoot it down, thus making it easy for Trump to kill it. Of 18 international human rights treaties passed by the United Nations, the US has only ratified 5.
Subjecting international relations to our deeply partisan political process has already made it obvious to the world that the US cannot be trusted to meet any obligations or keep any promises it makes in a treaty. Of course, they should have been aware of that long ago but it's easier to keep up the facade.
Notice how this ever always only goes in one direction - that of war and of empire unfettered by any law. The president can more or less make war as he sees fit, but God help him if he tries to make peace.
A mystery --- 170 dead Afghans and 13 US soldiers...
Just how a suicide bomber, in densely packed crowd, can kill 183 people?
While I agree that congressional oversight would make diplomacy much more difficult, the separation-of-powers argument against it is weak. The Founding Fathers did intend for the Senate to exercise some executive powers such as the ratification of treaties and confirmation of executive appointments. Unfortunately, the Constitution puts such important powers in the hands of a weak and unfit institution.
Interestingly, this reminds me of the old Bricker Amendment. The Bricker Amendment was a series of proposed Constitutional amendments championed by Ohio Senator John Bricker following World War II.
The Post-World War II era led to a significant amount of internationalism within the top levels of American government. This included many members of the Republican Party including Dwight Eisenhower, who was supportive of new international institutions like the United Nations and who supported many UN Conventions and Treaties. The rise in internationalism, however, led to backlash from members of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, which included many Republicans from the Midwest and Democrats from the South who favored a more isolationist foreign policy (not in the sense that the term is used as a smear now, but a more truly isolationist policy.)
To further the aims of the Conservative Coalition, Senator Bricker annually proposed a series of substantively similar amendments to the Constitution every year in the 1950s. These amendments came to become collectively known as the "Bricker Amendment." The Bricker Amendment would have required explicit Congressional approval for treaties and similar international agreements that were increasingly becoming negotiated by the President alone.
Back then, the arguments in favor of the Bricker Amendment were based on the idea that treaties and other international agreements would "threaten American sovereignty." One popular argument intended to appeal to provincial racists was that the UN Convention on Genocide would result in a scenario where a white motorist would accidentally strike and kill a black pedestrian and the United States would then be dragged before a UN panel who would then consider genocide charges. Similar arguments regarding the possibility of international bodies outlawing segregation were the most popular talking points for the Bricker Amendment at the time. One must note that the US is not a party to the International Criminal Court, in large part because America's foreign policy elites do not want the otherwise utterly powerless peoples of the countries we invade to be able to seek justice in court for the many crimes of the modern empire. Israel too, surprise surprise.
Funny enough, the article that Daniel has highlighted here seems to be making a different argument. This author wants to make it harder for the US to disengage from military occupations or reconstructions of foreign states, and knows that making such disengagement dependent on Congressional approval will ensure that like everything else that gets handed to Congress, it will end up dying of sclerotic partisan gridlock.