Uhh... it turns out that all that "rules based international order" bullshit, aside from just being 'I do what I want", might actually be because the US doesn't have a lot of protections or rights under international law because it never ratifies any fucking treaties. Looooooooooooooool
First, the United States is not a party to a number of important multilateral treaties that constitute an essential feature of international law. It is not a party to the Law of the Sea Convention which means that it is compelled to reprimand China for threatening the ‘rules-based international order’ in the South China Sea rather than international law.Footnote 22 It is not party to a number of fundamental treaties governing international humanitarian law, including the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. Nor is it a party to the Rights of the Child Convention or the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Inevitably this makes it difficult for the United States to hold states accountable for violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law to the extent that these rules are not considered by the United States to be part of customary international law.
We're just a bunch of lawless criminals, pirates, beasts of no nation, hosti humanis generi.
Xi please bring the light of law and justice to my benighted excuse for a civilization!