Explaining the Paradox of American Human Rights Policy

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 (even often multilateral) action abroad to promote human rights. …