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The art of compromise
Students' virtual pollutant treaty mirrors later United Nations accord

By Brian Fitzgerald

There were no fistfights or chairs thrown. Not one diplomat stormed out of the building. No one took off his shoe and banged it repeatedly on a table. Tensions did run high, and there was plenty of finger-pointing. But in the end they got the job done: a treaty that all the negotiators could live with.

	Adil Najam, an assistant professor in the CAS department of international relations and the Center for Energy and Environmental studies, teaches the course Global Environmental Policy and Negotiation. Photo by Vernon Doucette

Representing eight countries and four nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the 30 students in Adil Najam's course Global Environmental Policy and Negotiation pulled off an all-day international negotiation simulation on December 3. The goal: an agreement on managing the use of organochlorines - hydrocarbon pesticides (such as DDT), along with solvents and aerosol propellants that have a negative effect on human health and contribute to global warming.

"I think it was interesting that a real treaty on persistent organic pollutants was finally negotiated in Johannesburg, and the solution they worked out is very similar to what our students came up with," says Najam, an assistant professor in the CAS department of international relations and the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.

On December 10 in Johannesburg, a week after the BU students deliberated, UN delegates from more than 120 countries clinched an agreement on the text of a treaty to curb or ban some of the world's most dangerous pollutants. "Both our students and the delegates from the U.N. Environment Program essentially agreed to begin phasing out a small set of chemicals with the greatest known harm, and to do research on the other chemicals in the meantime," says Najam. "It's remarkable because the students had to arrive at their own solution independently and not by following the real negotiations."

Ironically, in November the students had been keeping an eye on global warming talks in The Hague, which collapsed. Maybe the class learned from mistakes made there. More likely, however, was the fact that if it is difficult for 30 students to theoretically hammer out a general agreement among 8 countries, it's even tougher for representatives from 120 countries to come to specific terms on how to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Although there was a global agreement in 1997 in Kyoto to cut emissions and other gases, there has been no accord on how to implement the proposed cuts in harmful chemicals and gases.

Najam's students found in their own negotiations that, like in most global warming talks in the past 10 years, every country claims it wants to reduce the production of harmful chemicals and gases, but each wants a guarantee that other countries will do the same so that no one is left at a competitive disadvantage.

The mock negotiation involved 13 participants: the United States, Japan, Norway, Germany, the Czech Republic, China, India, Brazil, two environmental NGOs, one industry group, one scientific organization, and a UN-appointed chairperson. The players were provided with comprehensive role instructions based on Najam's detailed research into how these delegates have tended to behave in international environmental negotiations in the past.

"Going into the negotiation, I thought people were going to be yelling at each other and that it would be very difficult to get the parties to agree on anything," says Erin Tornatore (GRS'01). "I also expected certain parties to stonewall the process completely. That turned out not to be the case. There was actually a surprising amount of consensus on certain key issues, such as the fact that organochlorines are a problem and that reduction in the more harmful compounds needs to proceed gradually."

In class the day after the eight-hour negotiation simulation the students talked about the proceedings in an Oprah-like tell-all: who did what to whom, who was stabbed in the back, what worked, and what didn't. And everyone remained friends. After all, it was only a game.

"I think it went well," says Karen Siren (CAS'01). "It was really exciting because it brought a completely different dimension and perspective on the things that we have been talking about all semester. It definitely taught me an appreciation for the players involved."

She notes that many student negotiators attacked Jeff Haus (GRS'01), who represented the United States, but that wasn't surprising since the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions last year were about 10 percent higher than they were in 1990. The United States has yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. "But he did a really good job at defending his position," says Siren.

Najam developed this negotiation simulation exercise when he taught at MIT. "I have used it all over the world as a research and teaching device," says Najam. "National negotiators, including diplomats at the U.N., have used it in their training."

One such diplomat was Yabanex Batista (GRS'00), who participated in The Hague negotiations on behalf of a Brazilian NGO. "I asked Yaba to come to class before our simulation and speak about the experience of the real negotiations," says Najam. "This psyched the students up even more for the experience."

At BU, Najam uses the negotiation exercise as a vehicle for his ongoing research on the role of developing countries - and of NGOs - in international environmental policy. The game is the focal point of the class, which is the cornerstone course of BU's joint master's degree in international relations and environmental policy. "It's an exciting hands-on experience for future negotiators," he says. "It's a great way of taking an otherwise abstract, distant, and complex issue and making it real to students from a variety of disciplines."

15 December 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations