Why America doesn't ratify treaties...

Anti-Americanism rears its ugly head whenever the subject of treaties comes up, because the US is perceived to be arrogant by not signing or ratifying "international treaties that the rest of the world endorses".

There are ... two main differences between the American system and the more usual Parliamentary system of dealing with treaties. First, the President can only make Treaties with the consent of two-thirds of the Senate. That is why President Clinton signed Kyoto but did not ratify it, as the Senate voted preemptively 95-0 against consenting to any treaty that was agreed along Kyoto's lines.

Secondly, and more importantly, treaties trump national law, having the same status as the Constitution. This means that activists can take the US Government to court and have national law quashed on the basis of a treaty commitment. Judges can also instruct the Federal Government to take steps to meet treaty commitments.

Read the whole explanation here.

Also,

It is a common misconception that the senate ratifies treaties. The senate does not ratify a treaty. Under the constitution, the senate's function is to consent to a treaty (or decline to do so). It is the president who ratifies. That is, if the senate consents to a treaty by the required two-thirds vote, that act does not operate to make the treaty the law of the land. The president still has to ratify.

The president cannot ratify without senate consent, but the senate's consent does not create an obligation on the president's part to ratify. Moreover, presidents can unilaterally pull us out of treaties — as Bush, for example, did with the ABM treaty and, more recently, with the Optional Protocol to the Treaty on Consular Notification. If ratification were a legislative act, I don't believe a president could reverse it unilaterally — it would have to be done by statute. The president has this power, however, because ratification is an executive act.

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