Lynn M. Wagner
Earth Negotiations Bulletin
4896 S. 28th Street, Arlington
VA 22206 USA
This research examines state coalitions' negotiation processes during four sessions of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). It asks whether coalition type affects the negotiation process and whether process affects the negotiated outcome. Negotiation analysts expect convergent bargaining behaviors to lead to compromises between negotiators' positions and problem solving behaviors to lead to the integration of these positions, with the latter assumed to be the superior outcome. The CSD negotiations offer an empirical test of these hypotheses, as well as hypotheses regarding expected negotiation processes for different coalition types. The study uses data gathered by the author at CSD sessions in 1994, 1996, 1997, and 1998 and finds support for the process-outcome hypotheses. The examination also provides a basis from which to offer lessons for future CSD sessions. I explore how changes in process timing, third party roles, and issue framing could encourage a problem solving process and integrative decisions at the CSD.
Lasse Ringius
Center for International Climate and Environmental Research-Oslo (CICERO)
P.O. Box 1129 Blindern
N-0317 Oslo, Norway
Scholars contend that symmetrical environmental measures are widely used because they simplify negotiations, prevent countries from pursuing extreme bargaining positions, and reflect salient focal points. This article argues that it is possible to negotiate and reach asymmetrical environmental agreements that take into account significant national dissimilarities. It is demonstrated that analytical models and intuitively appealing model-based quantitative indicators of national circumstances can establish premises for negotiations leading to differentiated environmental agreements. While they do not take the place of political negotiation, they help identify a formula that defines the problem in a resolvable fashion and prevents the bargaining space from expanding uncontrollably. Moreover, in pre-Kyoto European Community climate policy, which this article empirically examines, high transaction costs and EC member states' ability to block costly agreements were not essential. The article concludes by suggesting four recommendations for reaching differentiated environmental agreements.
Takashi Hattori
Cabinet Councilors' Office on Internal Affairs
Cabinet Secretariat, Government of Japan
Tokyo, 100-8914, Japan
This article analyzes Japan's dual role in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. It argues that the successful conclusion to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol can be partly attributed to Japan's dual role as negotiator and mediator. As the host of the Kyoto Conference, Japan undertook the mediator's role prior to and during the conference negotiation process. At the same time, as a participant to the conference, Japan took a negotiator's role to meet its own interests in the negotiations. Despite its initial position as a self-interested negotiator like any other country, Japan ended up in a different position than expected because of its broader role as mediator. By reviewing Japanese efforts to bring the protocol negotiations to a successful conclusion, the article examines the dynamics of the two dimensions of mediation and negotiation in international treaty-making.
Elisabeth Corell
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
This article explores the role of expertise in decision-making by studying the influence of non-state actors in the negotiations of the Convention to Combat Desertification. Actors possessing issue-relevant knowledge--often referred to as experts--are consulted on specific issues and may exert influence over the result of negotiating processes. Conventional wisdom suggests that since they are requested to provide advice, scientific advisers are likely to wield high levels of influence in environmental negotiations. There is also a growing literature that suggests that NGOs have increasing influence in such negotiations. This article examines both these propositions and finds that, in the case of the desertification negotiations, the formally appointed scientific advisory body--the International Panel of Experts on Desertification (IPED)--had insignificant influence on the process and outcome of the negotiations. This was due to IPED's perception of its own role, a preemption of IPED's functions, and the mandate and design of IPED. NGOs, however, exerted a high degree of influence because of the participatory approach promoted in the Convention, the composition of the attending NGOs, and the supporting environment in the negotiations. The article concludes by suggesting some implications of these findings for international environmental negotiations.
James Meadowcroft
Department of Politics, University of Sheffield
Elmfield, Northumberland Road, Sheffield
S10 2TU, United Kingdom
Over the past decade, there have been important changes in the way in which governments in developed countries have approached the management of environmental problems. Ideas of "partnership," public-private cooperation, and negotiated solutions have increasingly come to the fore, as the persistence and complexity of certain types of environmental challenge have come to be appreciated. This essay focuses on a particular type of collaboration: where groups based in different social domains establish cooperative relationships focused around managing specific environmental burdens over time. After presenting an ideal-type description of such a practically focused and negotiation-centered approach to environmental governance, the argument moves on to consider potential advantages, but also possible difficulties, that may be associated with this innovative management strategy. It suggests that collaborative and problem-oriented approaches are likely to prove central to the effort to implement sustainable development.
Brook Boyer and Laurent Crmieux
Department of Political Science, University of Geneva
102 boulevard Carl-Vogt
1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland
Implementing sustainable development requires a look at the domestic apparatus of policy making and, in particular, how state and societal actors, such as NGOs, interact in the formulation and implementation of policy. This article adopts a network approach and examines how network structures may condition the degree of cooperative or competitive negotiation processes. Based on theoretical notions in small group and coalition theories, the article suggests that a problem solving orientation will likely unfold in policy communities and that hawkish, competitive behavior will likely manifest itself in issue networks. This relationship produces a dilemma in that issue network structures are more inclined to generate the needed information, exchange, and creativity for addressing the complex agenda items of sustainable development, but actor diversification and transparency in such networks are likely to be barriers to efficient and successful decision making. After tracing the development and evolution of Swiss climate and biodiversity policies as empirical case illustrations, analysis indicates that the networks identified generally functioned inefficiently, thus supporting the conceptual propositions. Overcoming decision-making obstacles will require effective leadership and process management, clear mandates and network participants which endorse overall objectives, and the development of consensual group history.
Brook Boyer
Department of Political Science, University of Geneva
102 boulevard Carl-Vogt
1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland
Centre for Applied Studies in International Negotiations
Avenue de la Paix 7 bis, CP 1340
CH-1211 Geneva 1, Switzerland
Deborah F. Shmueli
Department of Geography, University of Haifa
31905 Haifa, Israel
Increasing and competing demands among countries for water is a major cause of international disputes. This article builds on research of negotiation processes and institutional frameworks of international river basin management. Its focus is the search for effective approaches that can be applied to the resolution of Arab-Israeli water disputes. While every dispute is unique, the Arab-Israeli situation is not the only case of with stubborn and long-standing enmities, shortages of water resources, political and economic power imbalances, absences from negotiations of vital riparians, and rapidly changing political climates. In the Arab-Israeli water dispute, there are both parallels and lessons to be learned from the situations in other river basins. The treaties that have thus far emerged from Arab-Israeli negotiations are briefly reviewed, as is the potential for future regional agreements. The history of other river basin negotiations is useful in charting the future directions of the Arab-Israeli water conflict. Issues include options and modes of negotiation, information and technology sharing, the importance of the geopolitical climate, comprehensive versus incremental agreements, linkage of water agreements to environmental and other issues, the power balance among participants, cost-sharing strategies, and institutions, and the capacity for implementation. Although the strained political relations between Arabs and Israelis have worsened in the past year and one-half, the water treaties do not seem endangered for the most part. Indeed, water negotiations may again become one of the confidence-building measures that can facilitate other more general negotiations, after the current stalemate is broken.
Cecilia Albin
Graduate School of European and International Studies, Department of Politics
University of Reading, Whiteknights
Reading RG6 6AA, United Kingdom
Most international negotiations involve asymmetrical parties, raising issues of justice and fairness at different stages. This article is an empirical analysis of the role played by ethical conceptions and stark power inequalities in the Israel-PLO interim talks from 1993 to 1997. It focuses on the negotiations over water resources and economic relations. Israel's superior bargaining strength ensured that the country's security interests and notions of fairness influenced the process substantially. However, the negotiations cannot be understood merely in terms of the distribution of power between the two sides. The costs of failing to reach an agreement meant that Israeli negotiators had to concede to certain Palestinian demands and conceptions of fairness. The serious charges of injustice and unfairness have emerged in the implementation phase, owing more to developments on the ground than dissatisfaction with the terms of the interim agreements per se. This case challenges two dominant approaches to justice and fairness in negotiation: the idea that parties define negotiated agreements as irrespective of their power relations and the notion that there can be no role for ethical considerations when the weak must confront the strong. It demonstrates moreover that conceptions of justice and fairness can serve as both external referents which guide the negotiations and be subject to bargaining themselves.
