Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
about a country is a major handicap in negotiations. It is so much easier to make intelligent
and fair compromise if you know something of a country's background and have a feeling
as to why a particular issue is held to be important. It is also helpful when you recognize
that an intractable gridlock may be caused by politics that have absolutely nothing to do
with the subject being negotiated.
The etiquette of international negotiations has been carefully nurtured over centuries.
Many delegates at the CLRTAP and future POPs Stockholm Convention negotiations (es-
pecially the lawyers) would have felt quite at home working on the Treaty of Vienna after
the Napoleonic Wars. It works like this: An intervention made by a delegate that begins
with a generous panegyric praising your merits and the brilliance of your ideas forewarns
you of imminent slaughter. To give you a taste, here is what happened to a suggestion made
during the Johannesburg session of the Stockholm negotiations: A small group of coun-
tries put forward an idea that was simply unworkable. Fearing endless debate amongst the
150 or so countries in the plenary session, the chair of the negotiations set up an ad hoc
legal group to examine the proposal and to recommend how to proceed. The legal group
swiftly returned with something like this: “We carefully examined the intriguing proposal
presented by countries X, Y and Z. We found it contained many fascinating, helpful and
innovative features. However, it did present difficulties in implementation, and in the end,
we decided to put it aside.” It is like the old Germanic Mensur form of duelling, set up to
conclusively decide an issue but to do so without risk of death and with the preservation
of honour for all (at least on the surface). Those involved in present-day negotiations on
climate tell me that such diplomacy is quickly fading and being replaced by another mode
best captured by a comment made to me one day by a Swedish delegate. We were sitting
in a small side session that was arguing endlessly about some little issue that had more to
do with egos than substance. Overcome with frustration, she turned to me and muttered:
“There is too much testosterone in this room!”
Some remarkable people were involved in the negotiations. First, there was John Buc-
cini. His skills at negotiation are mesmerizing. I would watch the storm clouds gather over
some issue and then see how he would dissect the problem into manageable segments. He
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