I argue that treaty withdrawal has two opposing effects on the development of international law. First, it directly impacts the treaty where it occurs by pushing the remaining members to adopt reforms to maintain cooperation. Second, it indirectly affects the development of other treaties by damaging diplomatic relations between the withdrawing state and other members, hindering negotiations in other areas of cooperation. Consequentially, treaty withdrawal has a mixed impact on the development of international law: it expedites the reform of one treaty while inhibiting reform elsewhere. I test this argument by applying a difference-in-differences design to an original panel of treaties built from the records of the United Nations. My findings reveal that while withdrawal increases the number of reforms in treaties where it occurs, it decreases reforms in similar treaties with comparable memberships. The indirect effect more than cancels out the direct effect. Overall, treaty withdrawal impedes the creation of new international laws.

我认为退出条约对国际法的发展有两种相反的影响。首先，它通过推动其余成员采取改革以维持合作，直接影响条约发生地。其次，它会损害退出国与其他成员之间的外交关系，阻碍其他合作领域的谈判，从而间接影响其他条约的发展。因此，退出条约对国际法的发展具有复杂的影响：它加速了一项条约的改革，同时抑制了其他条约的改革。我通过将双重差异设计应用于根据联合国记录构建的原始条约组来检验这一论点。我的研究结果表明，虽然退出会增加发生条约的改革数量，但会减少具有可比成员资格的类似条约的改革数量。间接影响远远抵消了直接影响。总体而言，退出条约阻碍了新国际法的制定。