Require the same weight of process to leave an international agreement as to join one
In short
- Leaving a treaty needs the same approval from the legislature that joining it needed.
- A single head of government cannot throw away a promise on their own decision.
- Even after a country decides to leave, a fairly long delay passes before the exit takes effect.
- During that delay, the country keeps following the duties it promised to carry out.
If this comes true
Even in the year the government changed, the climate promise continued, and in a seaside town a woman who designs sea walls spreads out the plans for the next section without worrying that foreign funding will stop.
Perhaps
A country that wants to leave an old agreement that no longer fits the times might find the process too heavy, and might stay bound to an unfavorable deal for a long time.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal writes a principle into each country's constitution and laws, and into the text of new treaties themselves: when a country leaves a treaty or international agreement, it must go through a domestic process at least as heavy as the one used to join. It covers every treaty that was joined with the approval of the legislature, including those on limits to weapons, climate, human rights, protection of refugees, trade, and infectious diseases. A treaty that needed legislative approval to join also needs approval by the same majority of the legislature to leave, so the head of government or the cabinet alone cannot pull out. Even after approval is given, a set period of delay is placed before the exit takes effect, and during that time the country keeps its treaty duties and takes part in talks with the other member countries. New treaties will include a clause under which member countries check with one another that each is following this principle at home. As an exception, if the other side has seriously broken the treaty, or if keeping the treaty threatens the survival of the country, the delay can be shortened, on the condition of legislative approval. On the other hand, the process for returning to a treaty that a country has left stays light. For treaties that already exist, the same principle is applied by changing domestic laws.
BenefitsWhen promises can be trusted, long cooperation between countries can begin
If leaving becomes harder, a promise carries the weight of the whole country's will, not the mood of one leader. Other countries can expect the promise to continue even when the government changes, so it becomes easier for them to start cooperation that takes a long time, such as reducing weapons, paying for sea walls and power plants that take decades to build, and sharing the taking in of refugees. In arms reduction especially, being able to trust the other side's promise is the condition for cutting one's own weapons, so this reassurance becomes the doorway to cooperation. Requiring legislative approval means that whether to leave is debated in front of the public, and the temptation to use promises to foreign countries to win popularity at home grows weaker. Because of the delay, even if a country does leave, the people and countries affected get time to prepare, and the chaos of a sudden exit is reduced. Because the process for returning stays light, a country that has left can come back to the table of cooperation more easily. Since it works on the root shared by every area, the lightness of promises, a single reform strengthens the foundation of every kind of cooperation in international relations.
DrawbacksOld promises stand in the way of a path the people have chosen again
In a democracy, when the people choose a new direction in an election, the government should be able to change its policies to follow it. Under this proposal, however, even if the people elect a government that campaigned on leaving a treaty, it cannot leave unless it gathers the needed majority in the legislature, and promises made by past generations bind the choices of the people today. A country may also stay bound for a long time to a treaty that has become outdated, or one that was unfair from the start. Also, once countries know that leaving has become hard, they may become more careful about making promises at all, so new treaties may become harder to create, or only thin promises may be made. If more countries rely on informal agreements outside treaties or on spoken promises between leaders, promises will actually become more fragile. There is also a danger that a powerful country will make a weak country sign an unfavorable treaty and then use this rule as a tool to make it hard to leave. Besides, changing a country's constitution is not easy, and if some countries follow the principle and others do not, only the countries that follow it seriously will lose their freedom to move.
Learn the background
Many areas of international relations rest on promises between countries: agreements on weapons that prevent war, arrangements to protect the Earth's climate, promises to take in refugees, and rules for trade. Yet in many countries, joining a treaty requires a heavy process such as approval by the legislature, while leaving can be done easily by the government's decision alone. As a result, there is a worry that promises will be thrown away each time an election changes the government, and other countries cannot commit seriously to cooperation that takes many years and a great deal of money. In promises to reduce weapons, a country cannot cut its own arms if it does not know when the other side might leave, and in cooperation on climate or infectious diseases, if the side giving money and technology pulls out halfway, the plans of the side receiving them fall apart. For leaders of many countries, throwing away a promise to foreign countries has also become an easy way to win support at home. However good the content of a promise is, if leaving stays easy, no one will act trusting the promise, and cooperation will shrink.
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-23b) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes