A Study on Some International Informal Agreements

Ranjeet Mathew Jacob

Abstract

The most prevalent and least researched kind of international cooperation is informal agreements. They enable governments to reach advantageous agreements without the formalities of treaties, ranging from simple oral agreements to intricate executive agreements. They vary from treaties in many ways than simply the way that they operate. Tradition dictates that the purpose of treaties is to increase the legitimacy of commitments by putting a nation's reputation on their adherence. Informal agreements are advantageous because of their more ambiguous character. They are selected in order to avoid formal, public national commitments, to bypass political roadblocks associated with ratification, to make agreements swiftly and covertly, and to provide room for future modification or even repudiation. Although the Cuban missile crisis was resolved by informal agreement, they vary from formal agreements since the underlying pledges are less clear and more ambiguous. Thus, the predominance of such informal tools exposes not just the potential for global cooperation but also the real-world challenges and institutional constraints on endogenous enforcement.