In modern times, we don’t live in a world where each country is in an isolated bubble, and in many shapes and ways this was actually never the case, but because how far we have come as humans, we live in an interdependent world where cooperation and mutual aid is more important than ever before. International treaties, addressing issues from environment, human rights, security, trade and economics, and crises are considered very important. However, while over 250,000 have been made, no one really ever bothered to evaluate them…until recently researchers from York University did and published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

And over all, they found that World governments are basically made of a bunch of liars whose words are worth nothing. They found that most treaties had no measurable impact and failed to produce any of their intended effects, and many lead to more harm.

“These counterintuitive impacts could stem from repressive governments seeking diplomatic rewards for signing human rights treaties while facing few consequences for failures to comply with treaty provisions,” state author Matheiu Poirier.

They found that mechanisms to keep parties accountable for their part in the treaties such as complaint, oversight, and transparency did not improve compliance. However, for important issues like environment, human rights, and security, there must enforcement mechanisms such as financial sanctions or other punishable actions such as removing countries from the treaty bodies.

Unfortunately, while almost all treaties dealing with the above more important issues fail, treaties regarding finance and international trade seemed to be more effective in producing intended effects. However, finance and trade are not the most important things when it comes down to sustainability and addressing future catastrophic issues that are looming on the horizon for mankind.

“The implications are huge for civil society, multilateral organizations and all government agencies involved in negotiating treaties,” says Poirier. “Today there are at least 250,000 treaties, yet relatively few have been evaluated for impact, which means we do not know whether these instruments are effectively serving their intended purpose. And yet, leaders from government, academia, business and civil society routinely call for new treaties to address global challenges under the assumption that most treaties work as intended.”

So as one can see why the value of honor is important as our world is run by powerful, short sighted and dishonorable people that put the lives of just about everybody in jeopardy. The say is true, a man is only worth as much as his words and how he keeps them. And this is true for world leaders just as much as it is true in the lives of every individual man.

SJ Hoffman et al, International treaties have mostly failed to produce their intended effects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022).  DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2122854119