I have participated in the negotiation and drafting of a few international regulatory instruments and many RFMO Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs).
yeah sure… i wait for the next agreement
Definitively not my favourite job… and I admire those that are VERY good at that… they mix a legally Shakespearian understanding of the English language, a Machiavellian understanding of international powerplays and geopolitics, plus a master politician capacity to put their country at the minimum compromise.
So in most of the cases is about lawyers type nit-picking the working text (which is always in English, and therefore gives lots of advantage to native speakers) which in most cases is the 2nd or 3rd for the rest of us so we die in boredome when there are 20’ discussion on a footnote. I know is part of the game, but one that operational people like me don’t like… I look for the objectives of the paragraph, they are trying to find traps in every word.
So in many cases, they aim for the lowest denominators where you can get away by compromising the least.
Now add to that in general, we don't have an issue of lack of regulations and agreements, but one of implementation of the ones already negotiated.
So when I read the title of this paper “International treaties have mostly failed to produce their intended effects” sadly I wasn't surprised… while not specific to fisheries it makes a depressive yet realistic read, particularly since the authors scope extended to over 250,000 international treaties that aim to foster global cooperation.
As usual, read the original, I just quote the parts I found more useful as a plain reader.
Significance
International treaties have mostly failed to produce their intended effects except for international trade and financial laws and treaties with enforcement mechanisms. These results are unexpected because they challenge conventional wisdom about treaties, which are widely considered as the apex mechanism for countries to make commitments to each other. Not only do our findings question the usefulness of the more than 250,000 existing treaties that have been negotiated to date but they should directly inform how national governments and international institutions facilitate global cooperation on the myriad challenges we face and how future international treaties can be better designed for greater impact.
Abstract
There are over 250,000 international treaties that aim to foster global cooperation. But are treaties actually helpful for addressing global challenges? This systematic field-wide evidence synthesis of 224 primary studies and meta-analysis of the higher-quality 82 studies finds treaties have mostly failed to produce their intended effects. The only exceptions are treaties governing international trade and finance, which consistently produced intended effects. We also found evidence that impactful treaties achieve their effects through socialization and normative processes rather than longer-term legal processes and that enforcement mechanisms are the only modifiable treaty design choice with the potential to improve the effectiveness of treaties governing environmental, human rights, humanitarian, maritime, and security policy domains. This evidence synthesis raises doubts about the value of international treaties that neither regulate trade or finance nor contain enforcement mechanisms.
Conclusion
Unless different evidence emerges, calls for new international treaties to address global challenges beyond trade and finance should be received with caution. Although the meta-analysis relies on the current state of published evidence, our findings that treaties governing environmental, human rights, humanitarian, maritime, and security policy domains have not demonstrated impacts either point to the failure of these treaties to achieve impacts or the failure of researchers to generate evidence of impacts. If pursued, enforcement mechanisms appear to be the only treaty design choice that holds promise of maximizing the chances of achieving intended effects. Future treaties beyond trade and finance that do not have enforcement mechanisms are unlikely to be worth their considerable effort and may have unintended consequences. These findings are immediately relevant for treaties that are currently being negotiated or that are being considered for negotiation.