The Processes of International Negotiation (PIN) Program is following a current initiative of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) to evaluate the negotiations to establish and implement the prohibition and verification regime by organizing a workshop that will take place at IIASA on 13–14 June 2009.

In the mid-1990s, the scientific community played a major role in the negotiation of the CTBT.  The community of negotiation analysts will now collaborate in a new analytical endeavor—a workshop that will be the 2009 project of PIN at IIASA.  Its objective is to evaluate the negotiations to establish and implement the prohibition and verification regime.  The workshop is conducted on 13–14 June, following a similar study by the Provisional Technical Secretariat (PTS) of the CTBTO evaluating eight different technical aspects of the CTBT.

The results of the studies will be submitted to the CTBTO and concerned states, to be used as a basis for policy considerations.  The PIN study represents the kind of project that best exemplifies PIN’s role in IIASA-related projects in that it: 1) analyzes and evaluates the negotiation mechanisms that an international system and the technical studies associated with it need in order to make their impact on the real/political world; and 2) brings theorists nearer to practitioners. The PIN editing committee is Franz Cede, Fen Osler Hampson, Paul Meerts, and I. William Zartman, with Moty Melamud of the CTBTO.

Three levels of regime negotiations are open to study and will form the framework for the project:

1. The 1996 regime-building negotiations to create the CTBT system and its governing organization;
2. The subsequent completion of negotiations, principally within the Preparatory Technical Commission for the effective implementation of the Treaty, in particular by establishing its regime, but possibly also through any continuing negotiations, including provisions and trade-offs required to accommodate universal membership; and
3. The individual field negotiations enabling specific on-site inspections, namely, how inspectors negotiate their way in to conduct verification.
4. The current discussions that aim at convincing the Reluctant Nine states not currently members of the Organization to join.  

During the June 2009 workshop, contributions will be presented for each level of negotiation.  The negotiation process of the CTBT regime can be analyzed in terms of the following elements, among others:

1. Political versus technical demands, understanding that the political is a technical area of its own sort?
2. Increasing technical knowledge versus uncertainty?
3. Leadership—individual and participating states.
4. Coalition formation and development.
5. Institutional versus ad hoc (i.e., inspection-related) negotiations?
6. Formulas for an agreement: what general formulas governed negotiations and agreement and were alternative formulas available and neglected?
7. ZOPAs (Zones of Possible Agreement) on specific issues between the Nine and the rest.  Are they impossible or were they neglected in initial and subsequent negotiations?
8. Regime negotiations in general: Is CTBT sui generis among arms control negotiations and are arms control negotiations sui generis among CTBT states?
9. National security secrets versus comprehensive monitoring?
10. Issue-inclusion matters (e.g., testing levels) versus party-inclusion matters

(e.g., threshold states)?

1. Monitoring access guidelines: how standard can such guidelines be and how much can legitimately be left to on-site negotiations?
2. Trade-offs: Were trade-offs made to the point where traded issues were reduced to the lowest common denominator and lost their effectiveness, neglecting other more viable trade-offs?
3. Training and operational manuals for negotiating levels 2 and 3?

The purpose is to analyze and evaluate current and past practices of CTBT negotiation and alternatives not pursued in these negotiations.The following analysts will be presenting:

Workshop Programme

Responsible for this page: Ariel Macaspac Penetrante
Last updated: 09 Jun 2009