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Blog » How Mediators Can Help Save the Planet
How Mediators Can Help Save the Planet
I've just caught up with an article written by an inspirational mediator, Kenneth Cloke. He wrote it after the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and reflected on the potential for mediation and similar conflict resolution techniques in environmental and other world conflicts. The article is on this page (sidebar) as a pdf for you to download, but I will paste in here some of his ideas of how global summits, like Copenhagen in 2009 could be assisted by deploying mediators:
"Mediators, facilitators, ombudsmen and other conflict resolution professionals have had considerable experience designing effective negotiation processes over several decades, and most would agree that there are much better ways of reaching agreements and unsuccessful outcomes are not inevitable. It would be possible for the United Nations, without significant financial investments, to significantly improve the quality of conversations and negotiations at important climate change meetings in at least twenty ways, for example, by:
1. Conducting an in-depth, broadly inclusive, collaborative evaluation of the process used in Copenhagen and other climate change meetings to identify what worked and what could be improved
2. Consulting widely with diverse public and private sector organizations and individuals who have experience designing dispute resolution systems and can provide ways of improving the entire negotiation process
3. Developing a comprehensive set of process recommendations for future talks and securing agreement to implement them prior to the session, and brief delegates on them before they arrive
4. Creating international collaborative negotiation and conflict resolution protocols, model mediation language, and annexes to existing agreements that encourage a broad range of collaborative interest-based dispute resolution processes, including informal problem solving, mediation, ombudsmen, facilitated dialogue, and similar methods (see, for example, the Mediators Beyond Borders proposal for language on inclusion of mediation language in climate change agreements)
5. Asking each delegation to future talks to include among their members one or more trained mediators, collaborative negotiators, ombudsmen, or small group facilitators who can assist in bridging differences as they occur
6. Assigning one or more UN mediators or ombudsmen to every delegation, and to each small group and problem solving meeting
7. Sending experienced negotiators, facilitators, ombudsmen, and mediators to meet with the parties in advance of conferences and negotiating sessions to help set targets and timetables and encourage compromises that could lead to better and quicker agreements
8. Drastically simplifying and reducing the rigidity and formality of protocols, rules and official processes, especially as they effect the negotiation and agreement writing process
9. Shortening large meetings and breaking participants up into small, diverse, informal teams to brainstorm alternatives, agree on common goals or shared values, and reach consensus recommendations on specific problems, led by facilitators and mediators
10. Offering free trainings throughout the process for individual delegations and teams in collaborative negotiation, group facilitation, and conflict resolution
11. Reaching agreement on a variety of next steps that can be taken when consensus is not reached, including dialogue, informal problem solving, collaborative negotiation, and mediation
12. Appointing fast-forming, diverse problem solving teams with experts representing all nations, regions, groups, types of alternatives and ranges of opinion, with professional facilitators and recorders to aid them in their work
13. Facilitating meetings of climate change experts and scientists to develop consensus-based recommendations, including them on problem solving teams, and convening meetings of diverse specialists to advise delegates on specific topics
14. Conducting open dialogue sessions on critical topics without attempting to reach agreement and providing multiple opportunities for free-ranging small group discussions, and open recommendations for ways of reaching consensus
15. Appointing facilitators, ombudsmen and mediators in advance for every meeting and asking them to recommend ways of improving the meeting
16. Focusing not only on reaching a single comprehensive agreement, but also on smaller, specialized, limited, tentative, provisional, national, regional and bloc agreements as well, then work to accumulate and amalgamate them into a single draft
17. Periodically conducting process checks to make sure everything is on track and making improvements as needed
18. Allowing facilitators to stop the process if it isn't working, discuss it openly, invite suggestions, and propose ways of improving it
19. Considering the entire multi-year agreement drafting process as a conflict system and use conflict resolution systems design principles to develop better ways of responding to obstacles, impasses, and conflicts as they occur
20. Continuing to search for preventative measures that can be adopted by all parties and UN organizations, that will help reduce the severity of future problems"
These are 'big ideas' for big meetings. But what can you take away from this list for your work, family or project?
