谈判和预先谈判_外交学研究

‘Negotiations are usually decided during the pre-negotiation phase’. Discuss with reference to a specific case of international negotiations.In diplomatic studies, diplomacy has many functions including ceremonial, management of relations, information and communication, contribution to the international order, while negotiation is only one of its various functions. Nevertheless, negotiation usually plays an important role in dealing with inter-state conflicts or reaching agreements over the globally concerned issues. According to Barston (2013), negotiation can be defined as “an attempt to explore and reconcile conflicting positions in order to reach an acceptable outcome.” In addition, negotiation has other unconventional purposes, such as delay, divert attention and collect intelligence. Negotiation is the most common tool used in bilateral or multilateral diplomacy, summit diplomacy, global conferences and the mediation. In general, negotiation directly deals with the most intractable global issues, including economic chaos, environmental degradation and war. According to Zartman and Berman (1982), the process of negotiation is divided into three successive phases: pre-negotiation stage, formula stage and details stage. The latter two stages are also called round-the-table negotiation, namely the formal negotiation. Literally, pre-negotiations indicate …talks about talks‟, which is actually a contradictory term. Although it seems illogical to set pre-negotiation as the first stage of negotiation, to what extent that the progress can be achieved during the pre-negotiation phase will largely influence the result of formal negotiation. This essay will argue the pre-negotiation phase plays a decisive role in the whole negotiation by analyzing Middle East Peace Process during the latter half of the 20th century and the early 21st century, which covers a series of negotiations. Moreover, this essay will also point out the pre-negotiation phase can be insignificant for promoting the success of formal negotiations on issues like global climate change.What is the relationship between the pre-negotiation and the formal round-the-table negotiation? Generally, pre-negotiation can be seen as the preparatory phase for theformal negotiation. Saunders (1993) argues that pre-negotiation refers to all activities before the formal negotiation carrying out. And it should fulfill three main tasks: defining the problem, producing a commitment to a negotiated settlement and arranging negotiations. Berridge (2010) comes up with the similar but more specific goals that should be accomplished in the pre-negotiation phase: agreeing to the need for negotiation, agreeing to the agenda of negotiation and agreeing to the procedures of negotiation. If all tasks in the pre-negotiation phases can be performed, the formal negotiation will function more smoothly and achieve a success with a larger chance. In the following paragraphs, the pre-negotiation phase will be analyzed in details to illustrate its functions and irreplaceable role in negotiation.The agreement to the need for negotiation is usually implemented through two stages. Firstly, potential negotiating parties have realized that they have been trapped in a deadlock of either military conflicts or economic wars or propaganda campaigns. More specifically, a deadlock means every party owns a veto for its adversaries‟ expectations. Secondly, after the deadlock accepted, all parties have to admit that negotiation is the only solution to break the deadlock, which is more beneficial to all of them than maintaining the status quo (Berridge, 2010). This is probably the real start for the pre-negotiation. However, establishing the need for negotiation is always a complicated and subtle task. As Saunders (1993) arguing, “In m any cases, persuading parties trapped in a conflict to commit to a negotiated settlement is even more complicated, time-consuming, and difficult than reaching agreement once negotiations have begun.”The shifting perspective of the nature of Arab-Israeli-Palestine conflict over half of a century is a good example to support his argument. Before 1948, Washington had clearly defined the problem as the conflict of two nationalist movements that both peoples declared their rights of self-determination over the same land west of the Jordan River. The nature of Arab-Israeli-Palestine conflict rooted in religion and history, as well as the intensified nationalism after the end of the Second World War. After the State of Israel wasfounded in 1948, however, the nature of conflict was transformed into the state-level conflict. The Palestinian people became refugees or an ethnic minority in Israeli territory. Not until 1974, the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), with the support from the Arab states, was established to speak for the Palestine people (Berridge, 1994). At Camp David in 1978, albeit an agreement was achieved among Egypt, Israel and the United States, a common consensus towards Arab-Israeli state-to-state conflict still did not exist on all sides due to the Palestinians was excluded from the resolution. On the occasion, Israeli Prime Ministers - Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir firmly believed the primary task was to strengthen the legal position of Israel in the west of Jordan River. While for the Palestinians, they expected to gain international recognition of their right of self-determination in their father‟s land where Israel shoul d withdraw their domination. As the mediator, the United States cared more about how the two peoples - Israelis and Palestinians or two states could peacefully coexist within the current international framework, which would benefit America‟s national i nterests (Carter & Laue, accessed 2014). Without the different pictures of negotiating parties coming closer and overlapping, the negotiation is unlikely to happen.After adversary parties have achieved a common understanding of the problem, they still need to judge whether they will gain more benefits from negotiation than maintaining the present situation. There exist four judgments that will influence their decision-makings. First is whether the present situation still serves its interests or not. In the Palestinian-Israeli case, neither party believed that its interests were damaged with a delayed negotiation. Israel under the Begin-Shamir‟s gover nment thought the inevitable outcome of negotiation was Israel gave up some area or even the whole area of West Bank of Jordan River and Gaza. The Palestinians judged that delay would serve their interests, as they could accumulate their military power and force Israel to leave from their land (Quandt, 1986). Second is the possibility that an agreeable settlement comes out of the negotiation. Third, leaders on each side willestimate that whether the other side would accept its proposal of negotiation or not. There exists a risk that one side may refuse to accept the other side‟s compromise. This can be treated as a serious humiliation. And the domestic public opinion may also protest the weakness of their government or even claim it is a behavior of surrender, which will cause much pressure for the party that first casts the olive branch. In this judgment, whether the two sides can overcome mistrust and suspicious to cooperate together is the major concern (Webster, 1961). With regard to negotiation, the psychological obstacles may be more difficult to handle than the substantive. The fourth judgment is a fair settlement can only be achieved in a balance of forces on both sides. The Arabs always worried that the powerful Israeli military equipment probably led to a partial negotiation. For example, the president of Syria - Hafiz Assad said Arabs would not negotiate with Israelis until they achieved the equivalent military might. The major concern of Arabs was that Israel would utilize the deterrence coming from its superior military advantage to conceal and distort some important issues at the negotiating table. For instance, Israel claimed its policy of taking over West Bank of Jordan River and Gaza strip was because of the security purpose, while Palestinians thought that Israelis tried to hide their real intention of dominating over the land unilaterally without the negotiation. At the same time, Israel also censured the Arabs for exploiting America to press Israel (Weizman, 1981). In short, the top priority in handling Middle East conflicts is to establish a commitment to negotiate rather than negotiate itself. Without the commitment to negotiate in the pre-negotiation phase, the formal negotiation will not happen.After the established commitment to a negotiation settlement, reaching an agreement on the agenda is the next task in the pre-negotiation, which means the order of specific negotiation terms need fixing. The difficulties stem from that the content of agenda may be perceived as prejudicial rather than neutral in three ways. Firstly, an agenda may imply a deal. If one side accepts an agenda offered by the other side, in theory, it might accept a binding hidden deal. For example, at the end of 1990, afterIraq militarily occupied the territory of Kuwait, Saddam decided to accept negotiation in order to avoid withdrawing his army from Kuwait. However, he asked America to set both the Palestine issue an d Iraq‟s occupation of Kuwait in the negotiation agenda at the same time. America decidedly refused his request. If Washington accepted his request, it would be equivalent to admitting that …Whether Baghdad would withdraw its force from Kuwait‟should be regarded as the same issue with …Whether Israel would withdraw its force from Palestine‟. As a result, America actually rewarded Saddam‟s act of aggression and Iraq would have a victory in its propaganda. Also Israel would feel disgruntled (Haass, 1992). Secondly, there is a risk that the agenda may be used as the propaganda weapon. In some situations, one side put forward some terms to which the other side will definitely not make any concessions, then, propagandizing its priorities should be its major purpose. For some reason, if the other side accepted these terms, it would not only hand the propaganda advantage to its enemy but also bring much trouble to itself and its allies. The Iraq case above can also be used to illustrate this. Thirdly, there always exists a risk that an agenda is too vague. In this case, one negotiation term may come up several times for discussion, even if it has been explicitly refused by one side (Young, 1968). Furthermore, negotiating parties understand that negotiation is actually a process of compromise, which means one side make concessions to the other side on some terms and it will receive rewards from the other side on other terms. However, each side expects the other side to make concessions first. This is because that it can show its toughness and avoid the criticism from the domestic. Another reason is that the party making concessions first usually has to make more concessions with the purpose of getting the more generous rewards from its enemy. In a recent example, Syria asked Israel to return the Golan Heights (occupied by Israel in 1967) and other terms would not be negotiated with Israelis until they made this concession. Israel refused the request for fear of being criticized as …weakness‟ and …sellout to the enemy‟. Although American President Bill Clinton tried his best in his last days before leaving office, the negotiation between the two sides still failed to make any progress (Finkelstein, 2002).The final task of the pre-negotiation phase is agreement on the negotiation procedures. There exist four items to deal with: format, venue, the rank of the delegations and timing. Referring to the format of negotiation, will the negotiation be direct or indirect?A face-to-face negotiation will be employed when the parties have normal diplomatic relations. If the parties are enemies, direct negotiations can also be practically beneficial to them. However, in the problems referring to recognition of the legal status or fear of losing prestige, the negotiations between the rivals had better be indirect talks, which means a third party has to get involved. Who should play as the mediator? A good example is America's former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shuttled back and forth for months between Middle Eastern capitals in order to bring about peace in the Middle East after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. This type of diplomatic mediation was called as …Shuttle Diplomacy‟. (Burgess H. & Burgess G., accessed 2014). Besides, American President Jimmy Carter even played as a better mediator in achieving Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978, notwithstanding many agreements were not carried out latter. If more than two parties participate in the negotiation, as often occurs, should the negotiation be transformed into a series of parallel bilateral negotiations or a multilateral conference, or some combination of both? Many possibilities should be considered when deciding the format of negotiation. Before Yom Kippur War in 1973, America took over the first mediator seat on dealing with Arab-Israeli conflict by negotiation, due to the Soviet rapidly declined influence in Egypt. Although Washington knew private bilateral talk was the only format to achieve a real breakthrough, the negotiation was still conducted by means of so-called …Geneva Conference‟ format.This format has six prominent characteristics: First, it was held by the United Nations; Second, The two superpowers - America and the Soviet Union jointly hosted the conference; Third, Israel and Arab states sat face-to-face around the round table; Fourth, the conference was composed of a series of open speeches rather than private bilateral talks; Fifth, neither superpower could participate in the sub-committee level negotiations; Sixth,the plenary conference had no right of veto over any agreements that reached in the subsequent bilateral negotiations. (Kissinger, 1982 & Quandt, 1986) Through using this format, the conference succeeded in promoting a peaceful trend in the Middle East; minimizing the chance that the Soviet Union would damage the negotiation on account of anger at being excluded; above all, normalizing direct Israel-Arab diplomatic contact.Venue is also an important element for the negotiation. For example, if one country can persuade its opponent to send delegations to negotiate in its own territory, this may bring it many advantages. Negotiations are usually arranged in the so-called neutral ground defined by the international law or convention. This explains why Switzerland and Austria were popular as the negotiation venues, such as Geneva and Vienna (Berridge, 1994). Moreover, the level, composition and size of delegations also need to be considered: Should the negotiation be held at the ministerial level or only at the official level? The higher the level indicates the more priority of the negotiation and the faster progress may be achieved. The final procedural concern is timing. Whether or not there should be a deadline for negotiation? If so, what kind of deadline it should be and how to set the deadline? These may make or break the negotiation. In addition, when should the negotiation get started? Sometimes, it is difficult to find a mutually convenient date for all sides. The dates in the calendar that evoke people‟s painful memories should definitely be avoided. Thus, for any attempt to restart the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation, 14 May 1948, the anniversary of that the state of Israel was founded is obviously not an adequate date for negotiation (Berridge, 2010).The Middle East Peace Process well illustrated the important efforts of pre-negotiation. The pre-negotiation phase plays an irreplaceable role in the negotiation. Many important problems are solved in the pre-negotiation stage. However, there are some exceptions. The negotiating conference on climate change isa typical case demonstrating that pre-negotiation is irrelevant at times. The international society has already reached a common consensus that climate change can lead to enormous damages to the earth, which will affect every human being. And no individual state can deal with the problem of climate change on its own, because threats of climate change are beyond the national boundaries and state sovereignties. The commitment to the need of negotiation on climate change has already been reached even before the start of pre-negotiation. Moreover, the agenda and procedures of the negotiation on climate change can easily be arranged as well. Therefore, the difficulties of negotiation on climate change lie not in the pre-negotiation phase but in the formal negotiation stage. For example, there always exist controversies over the questions that …How to distribute the responsibilities between developed countries and developing countries?‟ and …Who should take more responsibilities?‟ And there is a dilemma that everybody‟s business is nobody‟s business.More specifically, it is known as …tragedy of the commons‟. States would rather give up the long-term interests because of the handy immediate economic interests. Sometimes, states overuse the public resources (water, forest, oil) in order to increase their own advantages over the others regardless of the fact that the common resources are running out. Besides, even if a treaty has been signed in a global environmental conference, there still exists an uncertainty that how many of the signatories will fulfill their promises after the negotiation. For instances, the American president Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 as the representative of America, but America‟s senate did not ratify his signature (Victor, 2001).To sum up, on the one hand, pre-negotiation covers a wide range of tasks promoting the success of formal negotiation. Through citing various examples in the Middle East Peace Process, the detailed efforts in the pre-negotiation phase are fully analyzed: from managing to the commitment on negotiations, which is probably the most difficult and important part, to the agreement on the agenda of negotiation and at last arrange the mutually acceptant negotiation procedures. Most breakthroughs happenedin the implementation of pre-negotiation phase. Without the pre-negotiation, the formal negotiation cannot happen. Consequently, we can argue that negotiations usually have been decided during the pre-negotiation phase. On the other hand, the pre-negotiation is insignificant in the negotiation on climate change. 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