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It’s Long Past Time for the U.S. to Ratify the ‘Treaty of Life’

Bold U.S. leadership is needed now more than ever to address the biodiversity crisis. The Biden administration should submit the UN biodiversity convention to the Senate for ratification.

Originally published at World Politics Review

Trees are reflected on a raindrop on a leaf at a park near the venue of the tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan on October 28, 2010. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

By experts and staff

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  • Stewart M. Patrick
    James H. Binger Senior Fellow in Global Governance and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program

In my weekly column for World Politics Review, I argue that the Biden administration should submit the UN biodiversity convention to the Senate and forcefully challenge several misleading arguments made by the treaty’s opponents.

Nearly three decades after it emerged from the landmark “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro, the Convention on Biological Diversity has been ratified by 196 countries; the United States is the sole remaining holdout. This failure of global leadership is unconscionable and self-defeating, given continued, catastrophic declines in biodiversity that could see roughly 1 million species disappear in the coming decades. America must finally become party to this “Treaty of Life.”

The Biden administration should promptly submit the U.N. biodiversity convention to the Senate for its advice and consent, while refuting several misconceptions that continue to underpin political resistance to the treaty in Washington. Contrary to what critics allege, the convention poses no threat to U.S. sovereignty, requires no change in America’s environmental laws, imposes no onerous financial burdens, and poses no risk to U.S. commercial interests.

Read the full World Politics Review article here.