Had his dealings with Trifonov been reputable, the lieutenant colonel could have been protected by a contract that gave both parties the right to be sued. “Who wants to be sued?” Thomas Schelling (1960, 43) asks. Well, he notes in answer to his own question, “the right to be sued is the power to make a promise: to borrow money, to enter a contract, to do business with someone who might be damaged. If suit does arise, the ‘right’ seems a liability in retrospect; beforehand it was a prerequisite to doing business.” The odd right to be sued is the “power to accept a commitment.” It enables one to establish that one has a strong commitment to fulfill one’s half of a bargain. Trifonov had no right to be sued by the lieutenant colonel, who, indeed, could not even publicly accuse him.

XREF: Connects directly to Schelling's commitment and strategy game theory, and to commitment devices in decision-making literature.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 252