International Law and Institutions in the Trump Era

Abstract

This paper examines the widespread belief that the Trump administration’s attacks on international law and institutions are significantly harming the international legal order. Part I describes the actions Trump has taken. That is the relatively easy part. It is much harder to figure out the medium- and long-term impact of Trump’s actions. For the reasons offered in Part II, we think that in most respects it is still too early to tell. But we speculate that Trump’s biggest impact is likely to come as much from his verbal attacks on international law and institutions as from the material changes he has brought to them.