When a country signs a treaty, it is agreeing to something, presumably because it sees some benefit in it. It is entering into a kind of contract, from which there are presumably multiple benefits to all participants. Nothing is being imposed on anyone. It is being freely chosen by the governments that participate.
If a Nigerian politician signs a treaty while receiving bribes or election support from a Western or Chinese oil company, that doesn't mean "a country" sees a benefit.
If a country signs a treaty at a risk of being ostracized by the world, it's taking the lesser of two evils.
And if you take a child bride from a war zone, it's a free exchange, with both sides seeing benefit. However, that doesn't mean it's fair or non-coercive. Power imbalances can allow for pretty nasty, unfair deals.
I have a comment elsewhere in this thread with examples, both modern and going back 200 years.
Not the case at all. Treaties are sometimes compromises and in sometimes coercion under the diplomatic guise of choice.
Otherwise there would be no need for a treaty and nations could choose to enforce others' values of their own free will.
Exceptions don't refute the general case.
> Otherwise there would be no need for a treaty and nations could choose to enforce others' values of their own free will.
The point of a trade treaty is for each party to formally affirm that they will abide by the other's conditions. This is necessary irrespective of coercion.
Are you asked if you are Swiss citizen when you open a bank account in America?
Per FATCA treaty you should be but that isn't happening because the mighty power the US holds over anyone dealing with USD. If a US bank doesn't share its Swiss tax cheats nothing happens. If a Swiss bank hides them they get taken to the cleaners and can loose to do business with USD which is a death blow for any bank.
Did you sign a contract to be aligned with whatever the individuals running your country decide that you should do?
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In 1997, South Africa tried one tack. It passed a law to allow the
importation of patented medicines that had been produced or sold in another
nation's market with the consent of the patent owner. For example, if the
drug was sold in India, it could be imported into Africa from India. This
is called "parallel importation," and it is generally permitted under
international trade law and is specifically permitted within the European
Union.
However, the United States government opposed the bill. Indeed, more than
opposed. As the International Intellectual Property Association
characterized it, "The U.S. government pressured South Africa ... not to
permit compulsory licensing or parallel imports." 3 Through the Office of
the United States Trade Representative, the government asked South Africa
to change the law — and to add pressure to that request, in 1998, the
USTR listed South Africa for possible trade sanctions.
That same year, more than forty pharmaceutical companies began proceedings
in the South African courts to challenge the government's actions. The
United States was then joined by other governments from the EU. Their
claim, and the claim of the pharmaceutical companies, was that South Africa
was violating its obligations under international law by discriminating
against a particular kind of patent — pharmaceutical patents. The demand
of these governments, with the United States in the lead, was that South
Africa respect these patents as it respects any other patent, regardless of
any effect on the treatment of AIDS within South Africa.
We should place the intervention by the United States in context. No doubt
patents are not the most important reason that Africans don't have access
to drugs. Poverty and the total absence of an effective health care
infrastructure matter more. But whether patents are the most important
reason or not, the price of drugs has an effect on their demand, and
patents affect price. And so, whether massive or mar- ginal, there was an
effect from our government's intervention to stop the flow of medications
into Africa.
By stopping the flow of HIV treatment into Africa, the United States
government was not saving drugs for United States citizens. This is not
like wheat (if they eat it, we can't); instead, the flow that the United
States intervened to stop was, in effect, a flow of knowledge: information
about how to take chemicals that exist within Africa, and turn those
chemicals into drugs that would save 15 to 30 million lives.
"""