Negotiations come to an end. There is joy (in some people less of it, in others more), there is a mutual exchange of congratulations. There is satisfaction, but there is also fatigue, because the adrenaline has already gone down. Negotiations, as we have noted more than once, are sometimes an exhausting process. Because of constant concentration, because of stress, because of broken nights. The negotiator has every right to feel tired at the end of the road. The legendary Belgian politician and diplomat Paul-Henri Spaak (and privately the father-in-law of Sir Michael Palliser quoted on this blog), when closing the last meeting of the First Session of the UN General Assembly in 1946, reportedly said: “The agenda of the session has been exhausted. The Secretary General is exhausted. Both myself and all the delegates are exhausted. I am glad that at least on this matter we have reached full unanimity!”
We assume that the negotiations are successful. An inseparable feature of a good negotiator is professional optimism. We negotiate in good faith. Even if we have not managed to achieve everything we set out to do, we arrive at something common.
Admittedly, Diplomex reminded that malicious people once claimed that a diplomatic conference “is a meeting of important personalities who individually cannot do anything, but together they can agree that nothing can be done.” But even a fiasco can be packed into a constructive message: “Let’s agree to disagree.”
We have repeatedly reminded that the negotiator must be aware that his work does not end with the conclusion of the negotiations, whatever order or medal would be pinned to his lapel in recognition of his effort. And even if he is not awarded any decoration, the negotiator has only a limited right to rest and respite. In any case, orders do not have to be a measure of professional satisfaction. This is written by a diplomat who is extremely proud of the fact that during his almost forty-year diplomatic career he has never been decorated with any Polish or foreign state order.
Let us briefly recall what may await the negotiator beyond the horizon of negotiations.
Firstly, he may be called upon to assist in the process of approval and ratification (in the case of legally binding agreements) of the negotiated agreement. This may involve the need to prepare interpretative statements or reservations (if they are admissible). And above all, this may involve the need for a thorough explanation of the agreed provisions for internal use. In the early stages of my career, I saw explanations of the agreements (CFE and Open Skies) that American negotiators were preparing for the Administration during the ratification process of the agreements in the Senate. Their notes were were vast in volume and meticulous in detail, where the meaning and practical effects of each article of the treaty were explained. Sometimes line by line. Nobody can explain better the agreement than the negotiators themselves.
Secondly, the content of the agreement and the progress of the negotiations must be explained to the wider public. Until the end of the 1990s, most Polish negotiators were in the habit of writing scientific articles, chapters in collective publications, and even separate monographs in which they described negotiations and analyzed agreements. To be honest, I prepared such publications a few times (e.g. from the negotiations on the mandate of the CFE negotiations or the Helsinki CSCE negotiations in 1992), although I had neither time nor energy, because I was already absorbed in new tasks. But there was pressure from the bosses (for which I am grateful), and also interest from the scientific community (PISM and the editorial team of “Spraw Międzynarodowe”). Today our negotiators somehow do not feel obliged. Well, the habits must have disappeared. Because not the intellectual capacity.
By the way, too often in our times, even if Polish scientists undertake academic analyzes of current and past agreements, they do not feel the need to listen to the accounts of the direct participants of the events. I personally was often disturbed by scholars from foreign countries to present my version of negotiations within the CSCE (OSCE) or the Council of Europe. Some of them even noted it in the chapters entitled “Acknowledgments”. Polish political scientists only two or three times dared to approach me. And those with professorial titles – never. They probably believe that they will extract the whole truth from the documents. And later, their truth, which is legitimized by the received doctorates and professorships, can sometimes distort reality in quite a significant way.
Henry Kissinger once said that in diplomacy documents and reality are two separate worlds. He himself had several versions of the reports of his conversations prepared, sometimes quite significantly different from each other, depending on whom they were to be made available to. Even in these so-called NODIS memos (not to be disseminated) the whole truth was not there.
I became convinced of the limited value of the contents of the archives of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs when I looked through the files stored there. Publications prepared on their basis can sometimes (usually unintentionally) be misleading. A small personal example: from one of these publications it would appear that I was an alternate member of the Polish delegation to the session of the UN General Assembly in 2005-2006, which could suggest that I could have participated to some extent in the preparations for the session, and could even take part in it. Well, I explain that I had nothing to do with that session. I wasn’t present at it at all. I attended other sessions, even gave speeches at committees, but this is not reflected in the documents of that publication.
I know from personal experience how the so-called archiving of the diplomatic documentation has been done in our system. As a rule, it was performed by young employees who were not fully able to assess the historical value of the documents. And I know what happened to those documents later.
The negotiators’ memories, of course, can be just as unreliable. Some of the published memoirs of Polish diplomats are outright inaccurate. But they can always add some new light (sometimes very valuable). While writing this blog, I read dozens of memoirs of diplomats, mostly American and British. I read them with great curiosity, because sometimes I could look at some of the events in which I took part in a completely new way. I spent a lot of time on it, even though I was only looking for anectodes. It is a pity that neither the Polish MFA Archives nor PISM made an attempt to conduct similar memoir interviews with Polish diplomats, especially those who were active during the historical breakthrough, when Poland was joining NATO or the EU. Unfortunately, many of them are gone forever.
Thirdly, the process of implementing the negotiated agreement should be put in place. It has many dimensions. It may involve catering for national budget expenditures, creation of institutions, implementation of legal and administrative acts. It may involve overcoming resistance and removing bureaucratic barriers. In my experience, I found that in the case of agreements of a disarmament (military) nature, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could rely on the Ministry of National Defence (although not always – see the issue of ratification of the Ottawa Convention), although sometimes it was necessary to consult together how to act in order not to expose oneself to criticism on the part of partners in the case of ambiguous provisions in agreements. But with other ministries, sometimes it was not so simple.
In the international dimension, the implementation of the agreement may require additional negotiations, when it is necessary to implement the treaty or convention regime provided for in the agreement, create a new institution, and pay for its budget.
It is important to observe how the agreement is implemented by others. The history of diplomacy knows thousands of agreements and treaties that have been broken or ignored. Of course, it is best to introduce appropriate safeguards into the agreements themselves at the negotiation stage. Because, of course, “pacta sunt servanda”, but life requires us to apply the principle of limited trust towards other countries, especially some, especially when it concerns security issues and the settlement of conflict situations. It is best in such cases to provide the agreement with a system of guarantees, to introduce the possibility of using international coercive measures. The simplest solution is to bind the agreement relating to security to the guarantee system of the UN Security Council. But, as we know from practice, in the case of divergent interests of its permanent members, even such guarantees will be useless. The declaration ending the 44-day war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020 made Russia (implicitly) the guarantor of the agreement. But the declaration did not specify how or whether Russia would react if the provisions of the declaration were not implemented. And they weren’t. Armenia accused Azerbaijan of violations (including the blockade of the Lachin corridor, holding prisoners of war, etc.), and Azerbaijan reciprocated the accusations and finally seized Nagorno-Karabakh while the Russian forces stood idly. Would the situation look different if the UN Security Council were the guarantor of the agreement and UN forces were deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh?
Fourthly, strategies to pursue the goals that could not be achieved should be considered, including how to conduct further negotiations. Because, as a rule, not everything can be settled at once. When the CFE Treaty was signed in November 1990, I had already drafted our strategy for further negotiations. Because the Treaty obviously had to be adapted to the changing geopolitical realities in Europe. Its inter-bloc philosophy had to be dismantled. At the first session of the Joint Consultative Group in December 1990, as charge d’affaires (because Ambassador Konarski had already left the post, and Ambassador Nowak took it over only by the New Year) I laid out this strategy quite defiantly. Insolently, because neither the Americans nor the Russians were ready for such a conversation at that time. But thanks to this, from the beginning, the idea of adapting the Treaty, even before it was ratified, was launched and kept on the agenda.
These post-negotiation tasks do not necessarily fall directly upon the negotiators themselves. But the imagination of negotiators should be capacious enough to take these issues into account while still negotiating. Their horizon of thinking must always extend beyond the moment of agreeing a deal in negotiations.
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I have already written about how multilateral negotiations took on the characteristics of a self-perpetuating process and institutionalization after World War II. Negotiations have become a permanent task.
Giving continuity to the negotiations was to serve as a stabilizer in an era of tension and unpredictability. And in the new, post-Cold War times, the perpetualization of negotiations was to play the role of a catalyst for the search for a new world order. It was supposed to occupy the negotiating staff, protect them from idleness.
Perpetualization has several dimensions.
The first and simplest is to enter into negotiations to develop previously reached agreements. The best illustration is the bilateral US-Russian (Soviet) dialogue on strategic and other armaments. It resulted in several treaties: SALT I of 1972, SALT II of 1979, INF of 1987, START I of 1991, START II of 1993, SORT of 2002, New START of 2010 It took on the characteristics of a stage-launched continuous platform. Not always effective (START III talks, the commencement of which was agreed, never came to fruition). Not always dynamic. But undoubtedly based on the principles of progression of limitations. However, if China implements its intention to achieve nuclear arms parity with the US and Russia in 2035, the political and strategic potential of the US-Russian bilateral negotiation process will quickly be exhausted. Even if the current impasse related to the suspension of Russia’s implementation of the New START agreement in connection with the situation caused by its aggression against Ukraine can be overcome. India will look at Chinese armaments with fear and take appropriate measures. And this, in turn, may push Pakistan to develop its own potential. Without a new formula for nuclear negotiations, we may face a new edition of the nuclear arms race.
In multilateral diplomacy, the model example of the organic negotiation process was the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe from 1972 to 1990 (and finally to 1992, i.e. two years before the change of name to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). The CSCE functioned as a series of meetings, conferences, seminars without any institutional framework, without any guarantees of continuity. Each meeting developed the political commitments made earlier. In 1990, the first institutions were established and the regularity of political consultations and negotiations (including the Ministerial Council) was ensured. In 1992, a standing body for consultation and negotiation was established: the Permanent Committee. The process turned into an institution. Perhaps too early. And the value of pure political dialogue has been lost.
The institutionalization of the negotiations was conducive to sanctioning the existence of specific regimes within the CSCE (OSCE), in particular the regime of confidence and security building measures. Initially (the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the document of the Madrid Meeting of 1983, the document of the Stockholm Conference of 1986) it was a loose process. After the adoption of the 1990 Vienna Document, all subsequent attempts to develop and improve confidence-building measures took place directly on its ground (in 1992, 1994, 1999, 2011) and as part of negotiations conducted at the Forum for Security Cooperation. Thus, the process was transformed into an institutionalized regime. But when confronted with the brutal reality of the Russian aggression, nothing guaranteed the effectiveness of this regime.
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More rigid than negotiation platforms and processes are treaty (international law) regimes. Paul Meerts distinguishes three types of negotiations related to this: negotiations on the formation of regimes, negotiations on the management of regimes, and negotiations on their adaptation.
Many regimes have already been established. Of the more ambitious ones, an interesting case was the negotiations on the establishment of a regime of complete and universal prohibition of nuclear weapons. Negotiations were conducted as part of a specially convened UN conference in 2017. The text of the treaty was adopted in the UNGA by 122 votes to one against (Netherlands) and one abstention (Singapore). But it was adopted without the participation of states that possess nuclear weapons (including USA, Great Britain and France) and remain in military alliances with nuclear states (e.g. Poland).
An example of negotiations over the management of the existing regime are the five-yearly conferences of the states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There have already been ten of them. Consensus was achieved on final documents in 1975, 1985, 2000 and 2010. However, in 1980, 1990, 1995, 2005, 2015 and 2022, final documents were not agreed. Fortunately, in 1995, the treaty was extended indefinitely. All in all, the operation of the regime should be assessed positively. It is true that the DPRK circumvented the restrictions and developed its nuclear potential, and Iran is suspected of currently striving for nuclear status, but the non-proliferation regime is holding up well. The US, Russia, France, the UK and China officially have nuclear status. India, Pakistan and Israel have achieved it in defiance of the Agreement, but outside of it. South Africa, and then Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan voluntarily gave up their nuclear weapons.
I led the Polish delegation at the NPT Review Conference in 2005. It was shocking to me that the critical speeches of many developing countries were directed not so much at the activities of the DPRK or Iran undermining the Treaty, but at the lack of progress in getting rid of nuclear weapons by the US and other nuclear powers. The tutor of my doctoral dissertation, Professor Roland Timerbayev, may have participated in ten consecutive review conferences and was the walking institutional memory of the negotiations over their final documents. In his memoirs, he recalled the failed negotiations in 1990, when the US rejected an attempt to compromise on nuclear disarmament, developed in a very small group with the significant participation of Ambassador Tadeusz Strulak. In the opinion of Timerbayev expressed in his memoirs (he died in 2019), a precedent could then be created that would save negotiations at review conferences in the future. However, I have serious doubts whether this was really the moment that influenced the fate of the review conferences so much.
There is currently no better illustration for regime adaptation negotiations than the 1992 Rio Convention on Climate Change Conferences of States Parties. Twenty-seven COPs have already been held. They were combined with the review of the Montreal Protocol of 1987. The convention regime was adapted by the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the adaptation protocol of Doha 2012, the Paris Agreement of 2015.
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Experts say regimes that force regular negotiations are a better stabilizer than ad hoc conferences. Even if the structures provided for this purpose, such as the Joint Consultative Group under the CFE Treaty, did not (do not) produce the expected results. Undoubtedly, they take the hassle out of persuading the parties to convene negotiations, cut short attempts to set preconditions and prevent raising the price for agreeing to negotiate.
My advice to the diplomatic negotiators who will happen to join these serial negotiations within the treaty regimes and processes: get acquainted with the negotiating history, know the precedents, learn the jargon, master the canons of behavior there, familiarize yourself with the rules of procedure, and, God forbid , do not try to prove the dysfunctionality of existing rules, do not try to revolutionize them. Without following this negotiating style framework, your personal abilities and skills as a negotiator will be worth nothing.
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And finally, the third dimension of perpetualization of negotiations: negotiations within permanent institutions, governing bodies, statutory organs, agencies, organizations. These are always negotiations marked in a decisive way by the so-called institutional culture and significant influence on the course of negotiations by international officials (bureaucrats).
In my career, I happened to conduct negotiations (or watch them closely) in UN bodies, its agencies (UNEP, Habitat), NATO, the European Union, OSCE and the Council of Europe.
I have seen extremely strong attempts by international bureaucrats to influence the contents of documents negotiated by member states in the Council of Europe and in the specialized agencies of the United Nations. In the case of UN agencies, this strong influence, to the point of obvious manipulation, was almost exclusively present in negotiations over program and budget decisions. In the case of the Council of Europe, it had an almost total dimension in the forum of the Council of Ministers. The Secretariat had its own view almost on each subject and did not hesitate to push it, not only indirectly through the delegations of the Member States, but sometimes even directly. It behaved like an additional Member State. Sometimes even (I remember at least two such cases from my time in Strasbourg) it went alone against the will of most Member States. It frowned when member states submitted any proposals for decisions (believing that, following the example of the EU, where proposals for directives may only be submitted by the European Commission, in the case of the CoE, only the Secretariat should submit proposals for decisions).
Some of the senior officers of the CoE Secretariat had their own vision of the good of the Organization and felt that it was their duty to act for that good. Sometimes for very noble reasons. Even if the member states did not share this vision. And the political passivity of several key European Union states in the framework of the Council of Europe created space for the Secretariat to interfere in (political) matters that were not its own.
Within NATO, the role of the International Secretariat is extremely important in the negotiation process. The International Secretariat is responsible for the preparation of final drafts and supporting documents. It is also expected to foster compromise. But, unlike the Council of Europe, it did not try (from my memory when I was dealing with NATO at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to play an independent political role. It developed projects in close consultation with the Member States, especially the key ones. It would be unthinkable for the Secretariat to push its own whims on the forum of the Council of Ambassadors. In addition, the highest functions in the International Secretariat are held either by politicians (Secretary General) or professional diplomats (Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs). They have a sense of the political factor.
In the European Union, the situation is much more complicated. Leadership is primarily determined by the division of competences between the Commission and the Member States. In the field of foreign policy, the office of the High Representative has an important initiative role. The EEAS bureaucrats have a significant influence on many program decisions, but the last word always belongs to the Member States, especially – in an informal dimension – some of them.
My advice to emerging multilateral negotiators is obvious: you must always build good relations with international bureaucrats, influence their thinking and actions. But one must not blindly rely on their ingenuity and neutrality. It is impossible to believe in their total political impartiality. Even if they try and want to act in good faith, they can be manipulated by large Member States. It is no coincidence that some of these countries always want to have the last word when it comes to appointments for particularly sensitive positions in international organizations. In the UN, in NATO, and in the European Union, and in the OSCE.
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The perpetualization of multilateral international negotiations and their progressive specialization led to an increase in the role of bureaucrats and experts in the preparation of agreements. I saw this in the Council of Europe, where the role of diplomats was negligible in negotiating increasingly fragmented recommendations for governments, and even in preparing the Council of Europe conventions. In principle, diplomats could join the negotiations only at the final stage of adopting recommendations and conventions, when drafts landed on the table of the Committee of Ministers. I believe that the lack of diplomatic and political involvement in the earlier stages led in some cases to problems with the interpretation of these documents, resulted in them being ignored by governments or even in political campaigns against them (eg the case of the Istanbul Convention on combating violence against women).
I have already written that in times when it would seem that the demand for diplomatic negotiators should grow, their role is taken over by bureaucrats and experts.
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The work of international institutions has undoubtedly been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 session of the UN General Assembly was held online (and with video messages) for the first time. Even the Security Council went remote-only. Bodies of other international organizations functioned online. And the summit meetings were also conducted online. Remote work on draft resolutions has been introduced at the UN. Voting results were determined by e-voting (or by e-mail).
International organizations have become the arena of a revolution in the conduct of multilateral negotiations. If bilateral negotiations could be conducted in stationary or hybrid mode, multilateral negotiations, especially with a large number of parties, could not be conducted in this way during the epidemic. Mediation was even conducted remotely. After all, this is how the tripartite document that ended the 44-day war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in November 2020 was agreed.
New technologies have always influenced the way diplomacy is practiced. When Lord Palmerston saw the first telegram received by the FCO from abroad, he was said to have pronounced: “This is the end of diplomacy.”
Will the digital age change diplomacy? After all, it already invites us to create new concepts: “internet diplomacy”, “digital diplomacy”, “big data diplomacy”.
Undoubtedly, the possibility of remote conferencing speeds up communication, eliminates the need for empty trips, makes diplomacy cheaper, and joint remote work on draft resolutions or decisions gives the process greater transparency. But does it make negotiations more effective? As a traditionalist, I have the right to doubt. Is a computer screen able to replace live contact, close conversation, when physical proximity affects the reception of messages? And isn’t the conversation itself influenced by the place where it is conducted (a table in Delegates’ Lounge or Cafe Central)? Is the course of negotiations not affected by the need to slow down contacts, give yourself time for thoughts and new ideas, which cascading videoconferences do not provide for? What about the symbolic meaning of being in the same room and at the same table (as part of the CSCE process, the East German and West German delegations had to sit shoulder to shoulder)? What about non-verbal signals during negotiations? What about confidentiality in a time when Internet connections, even those that are secure, are so easy to hack?
Therefore, I agree that also in multilateral diplomacy the formula of remote contacts should be increasingly used for initial consultations and information exchange. However, we should use the classic method of stationary negotiations to establish common views and work out decisions in international organizations. The institution of permanent representations should not be put in jeopardy.
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Many international officials, often frustrated by the noise and disharmony of views expressed by member states, the harmonization of which sometimes becomes a Sisyphean task, may be tempted to use artificial intelligence instruments for mediation work, including famous creative programs such as ChatGPT.
Let the machine harmonize views, for nothing can be more impartial than it!
Perhaps machine learning will lead to the emergence of diplomatic mediation algorithms. Perhaps it is even worth investing the European Union’s money in it. I am afraid, however, that it is impossible to apply these algorithms in practice. First of all, because, as Noam Chomsky and his colleagues rightly stated in March 2023 in the New York Times, artificial intelligence does not have the ability to make moral judgments. And the moral factor cannot be omitted in international politics (and in negotiations) today.
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Some ministries of foreign affairs are trying to use the “big data” factor in their daily activities. Undoubtedly, it is helpful in planning consular activities, cultural policy, economic promotion and information policy. It would be strongly recommended to use big data analysis on a larger scale in the activities of international organizations, especially those of a specialized nature, including those close to me personally, such as UNEP or Habitat. I know they are even trying to develop strategies in this regard. The problem, of course, is that large-scale data is managed either by private companies (Google, or Alphabet, Inc.; Meta Platforms, Inc.) or by government institutions (China). Access by international organizations is very limited.
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Will new technologies, artificial intelligence, compromise and reconciliation algorithms eliminate the need for diplomatic negotiators, just as autonomous vehicles will erase professional drivers from the register of professions? I hope not quite yet. Not only because all my advice and recommendations that I gave on this blog for the last year would turn out to be completely useless.
On December 18, 2023, the last episode about negotiations: the sum-up entry.
