They are universally rather timid in their scope, and politically fragile. So maybe they aren’t going to get us there, at least not in their current form.
But it’s going too far to say they just don’t exist or can’t exist.
We have plenty of treaties that inhibit states. Nuclear weapons, slavery, pollutants. Enlightentment and enlightened self-interest isn’t out of the question.
Ask Lybia how nuclear disarmament went
Go count all the slaves supplying the global market for chocolate, cobalt, mica, vanilla etc...
How about prisoners in the US making .20-.50c/hr making license plates or literally picking cotton on a former slave plantation in alabama.
Or how about slave labor in the form of migrant children working in factories for Hyundai in the US south
The concept of self-interested Neoliberalism has utterly failed and it is turning into a global catastrophe
The earth cannot sustain 8 Billion people each living at millionaire consumption standards
In fact, you live better - far better - than anyone in history. It's not even close. It was built by the post-war 'neoliberal' order, on a foundation of human rights and free markets.
For us to quit and complain after all the work our predecessors did, remaining optimistic and working in a much starker situation - after depressions and world wars - would be pathetic abdication of our duties.
I suggest you read this:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2022.026...
Life is hard and always has been, but it's far easier than the lives of our ancestors (on average, of course).
Just look at the people who lived through - or the (200?) million who died in and more who lost everything in - WWII, less than 100 years ago, right after the Great Depression, right after WWI. And they were optimistic and energetic enough to build historically free, peaceful, and prosperous postwar order.
There is far more to do, absolutely. Let's get to work.
This might be true, but what exactly are you suggesting?