What Can Be Learned from the Game-Theoretic Analyses of Treaties? A Comment on Professor Sandler's Contribution

Abstract

In recent years a number of prominent legal scholars have joined a longer-standing tradition among economists in analysing treaties using a positivist and rationalist approach, often invoking game theoretic tools. This paper seeks to assess the boundaries of this research programme, identifying not only questions that this scholarship seeks to answer, but also those it overlooks. It is argued that some of the latter could profitably be examined using the same methodology and a number of suggestions are made in this respect. Perhaps more critically it is argued that certain key features of treaties, such as their very codification in the first place, cannot be explained by appeals to standard models of repeated games and that further refinements are neccesary. It is hoped that this note will be of interest to consumers and as well as producers of the literature on treaties and other codified international agreements.

Keywords: treaties, game theory

JEL Classification: K33