# 2026 International Organizations Withdrawal Memorandum On 7 January 2026 [[Donald Trump]] signed a presidential memorandum titled *Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States*, directing withdrawal from **66 bodies** — 35 non-UN organizations under Section 2(a) and 31 UN entities under Section 2(b). It was published in the Federal Register on 16 January 2026. This is the largest single act of multilateral disengagement in American history. It is not a close call: no prior administration has withdrawn from more than a handful of international bodies across a full term, and the memorandum did 66 in one document. ## What Was On The List **UN entities (Sec. 2(b))** included the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; the UN Population Fund; UN Women; UNCTAD; UN-Habitat; UNITAR; UN University; the UN Democracy Fund; the **International Law Commission**; the Peacebuilding Commission and Fund; the UN Register of Conventional Arms; the **International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals**; all four regional Economic Commissions; the International Trade Centre; and the Special Representative offices on Children in Armed Conflict, Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Violence Against Children. **Non-UN bodies (Sec. 2(a))** included the International Development Law Organization; the Global Counterterrorism Forum; the Freedom Online Coalition; International IDEA; the **Venice Commission** of the Council of Europe; the International Energy Forum; the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation; and the **Commission for Environmental Cooperation** — the environmental body created by the NAFTA/USMCA side agreement. Three of those deserve to be pulled out of the list, because they are not what the framing suggests: - The **International Law Commission** is the UN body that drafts and codifies international law. Exiting it is not a funding decision; it is a decision to stop being in the room where the rules are written. - The **International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals** is the successor to the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals — institutions the United States championed, funded, and staffed. It exists to finish their remaining cases. - The **Venice Commission** assesses whether constitutional arrangements meet democratic standards. It is the body that would evaluate, say, an emergency-powers claim or a court-packing scheme. ## What "Withdrawal" Actually Means CSIS analysis published a week after signing noted the operative limit: the administration defines withdrawal as ceasing participation and funding "to the extent permitted by law." In practice, for most bodies, that means American diplomats stop attending and American money stops arriving. The US retains its [[UN Security Council]] seat, UNICEF membership, and the core peace, security, and humanitarian agencies. The legal question is unsettled and body-specific. Some constitutive instruments have explicit withdrawal clauses with notice periods; some have none; and several of the listed obligations were ratified by the Senate, raising the question of whether a president may exit unilaterally. The mainstream view — and the one the administration is acting on — is that no Senate action is required. Legal analysts at Opinio Juris, ASIL, and Lawfare have all published on the question without a settled answer. ## The UNFCCC Exit The single most consequential item is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The formal notice was deposited around 27 February 2026 and takes effect **27 February 2027**, which would make the United States **the first nation ever to formally exit the framework convention** — as distinct from the [[Paris Agreement]], which sits underneath it and which the US left on 27 January 2026. The distinction matters. Leaving Paris is leaving an agreement. Leaving the UNFCCC is leaving the treaty regime that produces such agreements, including the annual Conference of the Parties. On 8 January 2026 Treasury separately announced immediate withdrawal from the Green Climate Fund and resignation from its board seat. ## Why It Matters Here The memorandum is the clearest single artifact of the thesis running through the [[International Law Hub]]: that the contemporary American right treats external constraint as illegitimate by definition, and that this is a coherent doctrine rather than an accumulation of grievances. Read as a list, the 66 bodies look miscellaneous — climate, gender, urban development, counterterrorism, arms registers, law codification. Read as a category, they share one property: each is a forum in which the United States is one voice among many, bound by procedures it does not control. That is the disqualifying feature. It is the same logic [[Project 2025]] applies to the civil service, [[Schedule F]] applies to tenure protections, and [[DOGE]] applied to statutory agencies — the claim that a constraint on executive discretion is a usurpation of it. What makes this document the sharpest version is that no organization on the list has meaningful coercive power over the United States. The Venice Commission cannot compel anything. The International Law Commission drafts. UN Women reports. The withdrawal is not from enforcement; it is from **observation and record-keeping**. That is a narrower and more revealing target than sovereignty arguments usually imply. ## See Also - [[Executive Order 14199]] — the February 2025 order whose 180-day review produced this list - [[Executive Order 14203]] — the parallel campaign against the [[International Criminal Court]] - [[US Treaty and Organization Withdrawal Timeline]] — the full 2025–26 sequence - [[World Health Organization]] — the withdrawal that completed in January 2026 - [[Paris Agreement]] — the agreement under the convention the US is now leaving - [[United Nations]] · [[UN Security Council]] - [[Project 2025]] — the blueprint