Copyright is covered by the Berne convention, which prohibits neither circumvention nor reverse-engineering, so even in this "what you're proposing couldn't easily be done without also doing this other thing, so I'm going to pretend you've proposed that other thing also, but I won't say so explicitly" interpretation, that is not true.

The Berne Convention has been modified multiple times, including by the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which incorporates a requirement for all signatories to implement an anti-circumvention law.

https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/

No, the WIPO Copyright Treaty is separate from the Berne Convention, and did not modify it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIPO_Copyright_Treaty

Furthermore, this whole discussion began with claiming it's impossible to undo anti-circumvention/reverse-engineering, without abandoning copyright entirely, because international treaties. Yet these treaties were modified multiple times, as well as new ones entered into. If it's possible to change these treaties to further encroach IP laws into our lives, why would it not be possible to change them in the other direction?

>"what you're proposing couldn't easily be done without also doing this other thing, so I'm going to pretend you've proposed that other thing also, but I won't say so explicitly"

that sir, is a strawman argument

Not really. A digital lock is not a creative endeavour in the same way we think of books or records.

Cryptography isn't creative?

These digital locks aren't usually inventing creative new cryptography (at least not the ones which are secure).