My opinion, FWIW, is that both treaty and international agreement (or “deal”, etc.) have upsides and downsides. And it’s hard to predict those considerations’ political salience or direction in the long term—e.g., just a few years ago, Republicans’ main complaint against the JCPOA (aka “the Iran Nuclear Deal”) was that it wasn’t an actual treaty, and should have been, which would be a very odd argument in 2025.
I think as long as MIRI says things like “or other international agreement or set of customary norms” on occasion it should be fine. It certainly doesn’t nails on the chalkboard me to hear “treaty” on a first glance, and in any long convo I model MIRI as saying something like “or look, we’d be open to other things that get this done too, we think a treaty is preferable but are open to something else that solves the same problem.”
My opinion, FWIW, is that both treaty and international agreement (or “deal”, etc.) have upsides and downsides. And it’s hard to predict those considerations’ political salience or direction in the long term—e.g., just a few years ago, Republicans’ main complaint against the JCPOA (aka “the Iran Nuclear Deal”) was that it wasn’t an actual treaty, and should have been, which would be a very odd argument in 2025.
I think as long as MIRI says things like “or other international agreement or set of customary norms” on occasion it should be fine. It certainly doesn’t nails on the chalkboard me to hear “treaty” on a first glance, and in any long convo I model MIRI as saying something like “or look, we’d be open to other things that get this done too, we think a treaty is preferable but are open to something else that solves the same problem.”