Sai Krishna | December 5, 2025

The Age of Treaty Withdrawals

The global order is fracturing as States withdraw from hard-wraught international agreements exposing a deep crisis of confidence in international law. In one of the more strikingly visible illustrations of this, Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on the first day of his second term as President of the United States. Among these orders, one posed a damaging effect on global efforts to combat climate change—the US’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. As a legally binding treaty on climate change, the Paris Agreement is an arduous agreement in the sense that its implementation calls for indispensable and extensive cooperation from all 195 signatories. The mechanisms, including nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies rely on their steady participation. 

At this point, the US has made withdrawing from the Paris Agreement seem almost routine. President Trump, for instance, withdrew during his first term in 2017. The withdrawal was overturned by Biden, who rejoined the agreement in 2021, a mere 77 days after the stipulated time of withdrawal under Article 28 expired. However, the re-entry was short-lived as it was rescinded on the first day of Trump’s second term. 

The Legal Framework

This back-and-forth raises a pertinent query: What does the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties have to say about the process of withdrawal from a treaty? This is relevant in view of the fact that the convention fosters the conviction—pacta sunt servanda, a Latin term that roughly translates into “agreements must be kept.” Article 27 of the Vienna convention further emphasizes that internal law of a contracting party cannot justify noncompliance. The gist is that a signatory is expected to remain faithful and committed. 

However, a deeper examination of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties dilutes that expectation. The Vienna Convention acknowledges that treaties can end or allow withdrawal, either through provisions within the treaty itself or under Article 56 which allows withdrawal if that was intended by the parties or implied from the nature of the treaty itself. In any case, the withdrawing state is required to provide twelve months notice which must explain their reasons  for withdrawal.

In this particular instance, the Paris Agreement provides for withdrawal under Article 28, making fallback on Article 56 of the Vienna Convention unnecessary. Under Article 28 of the Paris Agreement, a party may withdraw once three years have elapsed since the Agreement entered into force for that State; with the withdrawal taking effect one year after issuance of “notice of withdrawal” to the Depository. The process is straightforward, efficient, and easy to follow, which explains how the US was able to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, subsequently rejoin, and then withdraw again with relative ease.

The Return of Realpolitik

Treaty withdrawal has impacted disarmament as well. Lithuania’s decision to withdraw from the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international convention that prohibits the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions, serves as another prominent example of treaty withdrawal. The news had a pronounced effect on the international community since this was the first case where a state withdrew from a multilateral treaty that prohibits a whole class of weapons. Shortly thereafter came another unsettling development: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland, decided to leave the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines. These moves threaten to undo the progress made so far towards bringing an end to the indiscriminate endangerment of innocent civilians in warfare. 

The recent outflow of countries from disarmament treaties is closely linked to Russia and its ongoing war against Ukraine. Russia is not a part of the Ottawa Convention, and its absence puts all the countries that are a part of the convention at a disadvantage. Russia’s consistent and extensive use of anti-personnel landmines in Ukraine further undermines the credibility of disarmament regimes by leaving participants disillusioned with the impact of treaty commitments. 

Humanitarian disarmament treaties have a withdrawal clause that specifically mentions the procedure that needs to be followed when a country decides to quit. The aforementioned Convention on Cluster Munitions states that the party intending to withdraw must give notice of such withdrawal to the rest of the signatories, the Depository, and the United Nations Security Council. Such notice must “include a full explanation of the reasons motivating withdrawal.” Although this requirement appears detailed, it leaves considerable room for subjective interpretation of the adequacy of the “reasons.” Other important weapons conventions, such as the Convention on Biological Weapons and the Chemical Weapons Convention, employ similarly vague phrasing, so that the withdrawing state can simply make use of a statement of the extraordinary events related to the subject matter of the convention that it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests. The extraordinary in question events are vague and open to interpretation. 

While the Vienna Convention requires states to act in good faith with respect to their treaty obligations, a state’s interpretations often reflect their own considerations of national interest. After all, no nation can satisfactorily elucidate what “jeopardizes” the supreme interest of another. It is the sole prerogative of the withdrawing state to determine whether the reason is justiciable since international law provides no definitive mechanism to assess or challenge the justiciability of such claims. Whether the treaty pertains to the environment or disarmament, a state’s unilateral decision to withdraw remains unstoppable. 

The Cost of Treaty Withdrawal 

This begs the question: Can one nation’s defiance unravel the fabric of a global pact? With respect to the Paris Agreement, a global agreement to collectively reduce carbon dioxide emissions is easier signed than executed. Large-scale investments are the backbone of such an ambitious project. The US had pledged a conspicuous amount to the proposed $300 billion Climate Finance goal at COP 29—the United Nations climate change conference, which took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, in Nov 2024. Thus Trump’s executive order, “Putting America first in international agreements,” deals a significant blow to the agreement’s financial backing. The sudden U-turn by the U.S. will subvert the very stability of global climate finance. 

With respect to global disarmament treaties, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, delivered an impactful speech at the 7th edition of Tocqueville Conversations in Normandy on 27th June 2025, and said “International humanitarian law is not made for the hopeful days of peace. It is made for humanity’s darkest days, when armed conflict rages and people are in grave danger.” 

Her words gain more pertinence now as countries exit treaty obligations at the first sign of a possible attack. Commitment to treaties requires an unwavering resolve that endures the most testing circumstances. There is no operative scrutiny of whether the “reasons” are cogent and extenuating, so the only available repercussion for a withdrawing state is political pressure which tends to weaken over time. The mounting sanctions on Russia and its unrelenting War in Ukraine prove this point. 

International law is fundamentally about consent. A treaty cannot have practicable “express” provisions that refuse to let a country withdraw. It can only add certain extra steps just to make the withdrawal procedure more cumbersome and time-consuming. Proponents of the Analytical School of law have long argued that without compelling sanctions international law risks being devolved to moral persuasion rather than binding obligation—a weakness that contemporary treaty practices continue to expose.

The Future of International Commitments 

The Vienna Convention on Treaties provides the right of reservation to signatories under Articles 19–23, whereby a state can exclude or modify the legal effect of certain provisions in their application to that state. A country that joined a treaty by its own volition without harnessing the reservation clauses should remain an all-weather friend in its commitment to the treaty. A withdrawal coinciding with challenging times should not just be accepted with cursory scrutiny. The efficacy of international environmental and humanitarian law is contingent on international cooperation, which is based on mutual trust. India has had a no first use policy that it has adhered to over the decades despite being in a geopolitically unstable region. While the policy is not formalized in a treaty, it shows that fidelity to a covenant can be upheld, even in unfavorable conditions, if one is willing to go the extra mile. 

It is time to rethink the persuasive effect of “consequences” in international treaty law. As the primary custodian of the world’s treaty framework, the United Nations facilitates countless instruments of cooperation. However, its institutional limitations in ensuring compliance or preventing withdrawals expose a deeper structural fragility in international law itself. The UN remains a paper tiger on the current global stage—championing global commitments it lacks the means to enforce. It has been reduced to passing occasional resolutions condemning acts that threaten the precarious peace of a world over which World War III hangs like the Sword of Damocles. It is up to the participating countries of a treaty to come together in solidarity in times of need, rather than take the easier route out by withdrawing from treaty obligations.