PREFACE
Negotiation
is an age-old concept stamping efforts to bring together
people for the purpose of solving a mutual problem. Here again, as in
many other aspects of social behavior, we talk of an art and a science
whose parameters are projected and classified according to each specific
subject-matter. Furthermore in the international realm, since the begin-
ning of the 19
th
and in particular during the 20
th
century down to our
times, a distinction is made between the time-honored practice of bilat-
eral negotiation and the more modem experience of multilateral negotia-
tions, where new methods and practices are rapidly developing.
As far as the diplomatic negotiation is concerned, the classic ap-
proaches related to its organization and process have often been comple-
mented by extensive descriptions and memories written
ex post
by dis-
tinguished politicians and diplomats, praising their personal performance
and sometimes suggesting to the readers to do the same (if they can).
Hence the appearance of the target animal
The Negotiator
, whose skills
and tactics are thoroughly studied in colleges, universities, seminars and
education at home: double or triple thinking (good knowledge of what
we want, anticipation of what the others want, anticipation of what the
others think we think), talents of persuasion, trust, flexibility and good
(or bad) faith. Yet, to paraphrase a self-evident remark by an author of the
19
th
century, just as a book on poetry or on rhetoric cannot make a poet or
an orator, similarly books on negotiation do not suffice by themselves to
create a Negotiator.
In the diplomatic context, the negotiator cannot be an expert in all as-
pects of the wide range of questions put to the table. He is assisted by
technical advisors who, before convincing him, have to convince the poli-
ticians and the administrations in the capitals of the world. In a recent
meeting devoted to an assessment of the 1982 United Nations Conven-
tion on the Law of the Sea I publicly asked a geologist and an oceanog-
rapher, both internationally distinguished scholars, if they were satisfied
by the technical definitions and descriptions contained in /or absent from
the Convention; the answer was “no”. Indeed, during the decade of pro-
