Since the founding of the United Nations, the number of treaties and the matters they address have expanded vastly. It is increasingly common to find the same subjects addressed in complementary global, regional, and bilateral treaties. Many of these treaties contain provisions on the settlement of disputes regarding the interpretation or application of that treaty itself. Only some of those provisions establish compulsoryjurisdiction. These circumstances suggest an increasing probability that a dispute will arise between states under the substantive provisions of two complementary treaties with dispute settlement clauses, only one of which provides for compulsory arbitration or adjudication either in general or with respect to that dispute.

The commitment of the United States to its treaty obligations has recently been put in question by two persistent histories of treaty violation—the refusal to pay U.S. United Nations dues in full until the contentious and tenuous settlement of early 2001 and the repeated failure to advise alien prisoners of their rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Official advocacy of an antimissile defense system has also raised concern about the United States’ continuing fidelity to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.