In The Wall Street Journal, Eugene Kontorovich, professor at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School and a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, writes about how the US, under the administration of Donald Trump, has started a long-overdue re-evaluation of the relationship with an expanding, opaque web of international organizations. The round of cuts, according to Kontorovich, was broader, however, than it was deep. 

This last month, the US formally ended its membership in the World Health Organization, highlighting a realignment of attitudes in the State Department. Even organizations with noble-sounding names were not spared. 

Previous presidents wouldn’t consider quitting the Global Counterterrorism Forum or the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law, because they sound nice—even though they accomplish little.

The US just quit more than a dozen international organizations that dealt with environmental issues, a sure sign that there was overlap in their mission.

Then there was the Global Forum on Migration and Development and the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, promote policy agendas largely aligned with European left-wing political values. The United Nations Program for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women became notorious for its slow response to Hamas’s sexual violence on Oct. 7, 2023, though it didn’t miss Amal Clooney’s birthday.

International organizations are where accountability goes to die.

International organizations are further removed from voters than even national governments are.

Meaningful reform is impossible for institutions governed by international agreements, in which every member state must agree to changes.

Mr. Kontorovich writes that the Trump administration’s flight from 66 organizations exaggerates the scale of the move. Rather, many of the listed entities weren’t treaty organizations of which the U.S. was formally a member, but rather funds, conferences, or informal consortia that a country could participate in or not, carrying no obligations. Some received no financial support, and some weren’t even listed in the State Department’s annual inventory of roughly 160 international organizations in which the U.S. participates.

So as you can see, this was not much of a housecleaning as it was a culling of online subscriptions, which also doesn’t mean that it wasn’t worth the effort.

Participation in many of these organizations is inherently symbolic—a ritual of internationalism—so quitting them is inherently performative as well.

Withdrawal from treaties are most significant, like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the US joined in 1992.

It is unlikely 67 senators would approve this greenhouse-gas boondoggle again.

For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization was designed to eradicate hunger but is now a bloated, Chinese-dominated anachronism.

One underappreciated consequence of the U.S. exit from international organizations is the potential of litigation in U.S. courts. Part of what insulates international organizations from the consequences of their bad decisions is the broad legal immunity they enjoy. But under the International Organizations Immunities Act, this applies only as long as the U.S. “participates” in the organization.

Was the WHO a prime target for plaintiffs’ lawyers for its role in the Covid pandemic?

According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “The WHO obstructed the timely and accurate sharing of critical information that could have saved American lives and then concealed those failures under the pretext of acting ‘in the interest of public health.’ ”

Lawsuits to hold the WHO liable for alleged Covid-related negligence or coverups were tossed because of immunity. Now, pretty much everyone is a potential plaintiff. And the Supreme Court has held in the context of sovereign immunity that deimmunization applies retroactively.

The Trump administration’s withdrawal from many other international organizations won’t be meaningful in the long run unless coupled by legislative actions to reinforce them. Congress should, where possible, writes Mr. Kontorovich, repeal any laws that authorize membership.

Given that the State Department sees some of these organizations as “a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity,” the administration should make clear to America’s friends and allies that their departure from these organizations will be looked upon favorably. Israel has been a model in this regard, announcing its exit from seven of the same organizations; it is also considering a departure from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Other countries may need some prodding.