Negotiating at the United Nations

A Practitioner's Guide

Rebecca W. Gaudiosi, Jimena Leiva Roesch, Wu Ye-Min

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429956713
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book offers a comprehensive practitioner's guide to negotiating at the United Nations.

Although much of the content can be applied broadly, the guide focuses on navigating multilateral negotiations at the UN. The book is a tool to help new UN negotiators, explaining basic negotiation concepts and offering insight into the complexities of the UN system. It also offers a playbook for cooperation for negotiators at any level, exploring the dynamics of relationships and alliances, the art of chairing a negotiation, and the importance of balancing the power asymmetries present in any multilateral discussion. The book proposes improvements to the UN negotiation process and looks at the impact of information technologies on negotiation dynamics; it also shares stories from women UN delegates, illustrating what it means to be a female negotiator at the UN. This book is an exploration of the power of the individual in any negotiation, and of the responsibility all negotiators have in wielding that power to speak for a better world.

This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, global governance, foreign policy, and International Relations, as well as practitioners and policymakers.

Part One

Negotiator Tool-Kit

1 Negotiating the hard stuff

Disclaimer: The stakes at the UN are certainly more serious than those in a board game. Nevertheless, like simulation exercises used for negotiating training, envisioning a game can help the new negotiator understand some of the basic dynamics of a tough UN negotiation. Like experienced gamers who know where to find all the traps and extra resources to gain temporary invincibility in a game, an experienced negotiator knows how to navigate the negotiation terrain, avoid pitfalls, and attain resources to boost her chances of forging a good outcome.

In this chapter, we provide a tongue-in-cheek instruction manual for playing the “game” known as “The Difficult Negotiation.” While we prefer interest-based negotiation over positional bargaining, this is a situation you may encounter at some point in your life and it is important for you to build awareness of the terrain. Take courage that others have gone down this road before and good luck!

The difficult negotiation: What trade-offs will you make? Will the parties emerge victorious?

Overview

The game is often played over several rounds. In each round, each player (negotiator) chooses a role and takes one or more actions. For example, a player can choose the role of “The Intransigent” and take the action of “Belabouring Arguments.”

Through roles and actions, the player aims to secure her priorities, without crossing any of her red lines. Points are won by securing priorities. Points are lost when ceding priorities. If a player crosses her red line, she immediately loses the game. Special victory points are awarded when an action makes the world a better place.

At the end of the last round, each player votes on whether she would like, in future, to play this game again with each of the other players. If the majority votes no against a player, that player loses the game immediately. This usually happens when the player has lost trust and goodwill over the course of the game.

The main aim for each player is to make the best choices on roles and actions, while making and maintaining good working relationships. At the end of the game, every player counts up their points. If every player is above zero, every player wins. If any player is below zero, every player loses.¹

Game components

The roles

• The Intransigent: Refuses to change her mind
• The Bridge-Builder: Tries to help two or more other parties secure their interests without crossing her own red lines
• The Derailer: Keeps the parties from moving forward
• The Know-It-All: Has something to say about everything
• The Meanie: Put on your scariest face and scare them into submission
• The Earnest Newbie: Appear clueless in the hope that others will treat you gently
• The Indifferent: Look up and nod your head between intervals of instagramming
• The Blusterer: Like a sharp-elbowed pedestrian on a crowded street or a bull in a china shop, go ahead and burn those relational bridges!
• Players are welcome to create new roles for themselves.

The actions

• Discuss
• Offer advice
• Offer clearly unwanted advice
• Confer among selected players
• Collaborate among selected players
• Make a proposal
• Accept an offer
• Pretend you are paying attention
• Stall
• Belabour arguments
• Renege on an agreement
• Throw a hissy fit
• Walk away
• Players are welcome to create new actions for themselves.

Playing the game

Choosing roles

When choosing roles, players should aim for roles that exude both warmth and competence. As Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy and other experts have found, people evaluate new people they meet based on their warmth and competence.² Those seen to be competent but cold may evoke envy and resentment by others. Those perceived as warm and competent are more likely to receive help and cooperation. Those who appear to be warm but less competent are often treated as non-competitors (hence the occasional advantage of the role of Earnest Newbie).

Establish priorities

At the start of the game, each player should establish priorities that represent her interests. Identify how important each priority is to you. For example, you can give each priority a number from 1–10, 1 for “a nice to have” and 10 for “I will implode without this.”

In a negotiation, you are likely to have to make trade-offs. Trade-offs involve giving up an item to receive another in return. Knowing how valuable each item is to you – or how to achieve your interests in an alternative way – helps you to make calculated trade-offs.

Next, identify your red lines. These are items seriously detrimental to your interests. If you agree to it, or anything worse, you are better off walking away from the negotiation. For example, some people refuse to date nose-pickers. To them, dating a person who relishes nose-picking in public crosses a red line.

Each player may have different priorities and red lines. To plan your trade-offs, you need to understand the other parties’ priorities and red lines. This involves using the “ladder of inference” – effective inquiry, coupled with structured advocacy – which will allow you to learn more about what your counterpart(s) want and need, while offering you an opportunity to explain your priorities (explained in Chapter 2).

Shared priorities and/or red lines are opportunities for building alliances (see Chapter 4). Different priorities and/or red lines are opportunities for making trades or creating solutions where both parties can benefit. There is a well-known story in negotiations about satisfying two people who wanted the same orange. The two parties wanted the orange – but one for the juice, the other for the peel. Evidently, having different interests does not always need to lead to a fight.

Some players come to the negotiating table with the mindset of wanting what they want, and not wanting what they don’t like. This limits the opportunities for trades and creating solutions together. Say two players want the orange for the juice. The intractable player demands the whole orange and is unwilling to compromise. The other player who wants the juice can try to sell the peel to buy more oranges, concede the orange, or hold fast and see who blinks first. It is one thing to play who blinks first with an orange, it is another to do so at the UN when lives are at stake.

Making trades

The game often boils down to players trading off some of their less important priorities to secure the priorities at the top of their respective lists, while forging common solutions based on their interests.

In early rounds, a player may wish to focus on items where agreement can be easily reached, also known as “low hanging fruit.” These can be items low on both parties’ priority lists, or where the trade-off or common interest is quite clear for both sides, and one that players are keen to make. Such “low hanging fruit” can help players build trust and confidence in each other, essential elements during the more complex rounds. But beware of exhausting your resources to secure low level priorities – significant resources (e.g. goodwill, energy and time) are likely to be needed when negotiating high level priorities.

Another approach is to request priorities that seem comparatively inconsequential to the other party after the latter has made a large concession. Concessions usually involve giving up something of value. Having given up something expensive, this player is likely to make the second concession as well since the latter now seems much less valuable (and thus feels less painful) in comparison. This is likely why McDonald’s upsize meals are attractive. Having paid say $5.45 for a Big Mac meal, the 50 cents cost of upsizing seems like a steal in comparison! For another UN negotiator’s take on making trades, see “Strategic Planning: Negotiating and Conceding in Your Favor” by Ryan Lee Hom at the end of this chapter.

Package deals

Package deals can be used to encourage trade-offs, particularly if more incentives are needed for concessions to be made. As a basic example of this, Viv wants to borrow her colleague Joe’s car tonight so she can meet friends for dinner. She offers to take his night shift at work tomorrow. It is a one-for-one trade. Joe ups the bargain, he wants Viv to take two night shifts. Viv has been eyeing Joe’s new video game, she packages the deal by offering to take two of his night shifts at work for the use of his car and new video game. He agrees and it is a win for both parties!

At the climate talks in advance of the Paris Agreement, one of the most complicated issues was asking large developing economies to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases because this was perceived as asking them to stop or slow their economic growth. As such, a package deal was proposed to satisfy the various interests of the negotiating parties. It included financial support for developing countries as well as the space for countries to declare voluntarily their contributions to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

Players can therefore consider how priorities can be grouped to make the trade-offs acceptable to the parties. Do note the downsides. If too many items are packaged in a deal, a failure of one can be a failure of all. Going back to our Viv and Joe example, Viv now offers to take four of Joe’s night shifts at work if he gives her the pair of movie tickets he won at the company’s raffle last night. Joe’s partner walks in and questions how he could have given away their movie tickets and drives off his car in a huff. Viv tries to renegotiate a new deal with Joe but Joe is now too upset to talk about any deals. A package deal that works is great; a package deal that does not work just makes the problem bigger.

Even seasoned players have thrown out the baby with the bathwater or tanked fruitful agreements because they overextended themselves in a package deal. After one Minister got preliminary agreement on his country’s top priorities in a bilateral negotiation, he misread the response of his counterpart and tried to push for more. In the negotiation room, he said the deal did not fully address his country’s concerns and called for his counterpart to make more concessions. It backfired and the bilateral meeting ended without any agreement.

Another example of a package deal going astray is the negotiations on anti-dumping at the Uruguay Round on multilateral trade. As Singapore’s negotiator Margaret Liang recounts:

However, the negotiations during the whole month of October did not make much progress given that the other major groups on agriculture, TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), and services were still not in their final stages. The US and European Community were thus not ready to concede on anti-dumping.³

An item once entangled in a package deal cannot be easily untangled. A package deal can also slow down discussions on each item in the deal. As such, negotiators should try to ensure that a package deal does not affect any time-sensitive interests.

The psychological factor

In sports, we talk about psyching out the opponent. We train our brain so we do not inadvertently psych ourselves out. One Ambassador is known to listen to Rocky’s fist-pumping theme to prepare his mindset before entering a negotiation room. This game is no different. Moderates, people who hold less extreme views, tend to negotiate with themselves (and their headquarters) before going to meet the other party. They weed out what they see as extreme and focus on middle ground proposals that seem feasible. People like working with moderates due to their practical and efficient nature. However, moderates may be at a psychological disadvantage when they trade with spoilers. This is because a spoiler moderates her bargaining position to a lesser extent than a moderate does. As a result, their opening proposals lack parity. This can skew the final outcome against the interests of moderates.

The same basic dynamic is evident in the simple debate between a dad and his six-year-old on the going rate of the tooth fairy. Moderate dad’s instinct is $2 but he does his research (yes there is data on the internet on this) and offers the market rate of $3 a tooth. The six-year-old is saving up for a bike and demands $20 for her shaky tooth. Even if dad and child meet in the middle at $11.50, it is way off the market rate of $3 because the opening prices were $3 and $20, respectively.

Draconian mom arrives and laughs off dad’s assumption that their child is not a tyrant. She knows that even if she offers the child one cent, the “middle ground” would still be around $10 if they both concede at the rate of $1 each round. She takes extreme action, declaring the tooth fairy out of business. The child, realising she has met her match, quickly drops her price to $10 then $5, before settling on the market rate of $3. Moderate dad realizes he needs to be more aware of how he thinks and how the other party thinks. Moreover, by partnering with draconian mom, he gets what he wants and comes out looking like the good guy! If there were 193 kids in the family, then we could begin to approximate the complexity a negotiator faces at the UN.

Momentum

Momentum is another psychological factor in negotiations. If most players appear to be in agreement, the one sitting on the fence is less inclined to object. A player tabling a proposal may thus wish to create the appearance of general agreement to dissuade potential naysayers (i.e. those who are unsure about the proposal but do not see it as a red line).

This can be done by having her allies on the subject speak up for the proposal at the negotiation table. A chorus of support creates a positive momentum that leaves potential naysayers thinking twice about the consequences of speaking against the proposal. However, once a party speaks against the proposal, the psychological barrier is broken and fence sitters now feel more emboldened to voice their views. Proponents should therefore engage potential naysayers o...