Why is the US so reluctant to ratify and apply multilateral human rights treaties? Compared to most advanced industrial democracies, the US still refuses to formally accept nearly all widely accepted international legal human rights norms and uniformly rejects legal enforcement of those norms within its borders, whether by international or domestic means. This is a paradox in a country with a robust tradition of domestic civil rights enforcement and a vigorous record of unilateral (…showed first 75 words of 5013 total…

…showed last 75 words of 5013 total…nearly a century--there is very little to be done. Those who pay the primary cost of this policy are neither foreign citizens nor international officials, as is often claimed. The international human rights system has deepened and broadened over the past generation even without full US adherence. The losers are instead Americans who might otherwise have the opportunity to appear before their own domestic courts to claim more extensive protection of internationally respected human rights.