New PINPoints #40 - Clingendael’s negotiation magazine: now available
30 Jul 2014 - 17:31
Source: Flickr / usnavy. Sea Hawk helicopters maneuver over the South China Sea
In the first PINPoints since the death of Nelson Mandela we take stock of his negotiation legacy. Mandela was an unique leader who was not only able to recognize (and partly create) ripeness in the negotiations which ended Apartheid, but to also seize that moment for the benefit of his country. A form of leadership which we have not seen since, although the new edition of PINPoints described plenty of situations in which it is surely needed.
In issue #40:
- Paul Meerts worries that the Ukraine crisis is unraveling the negotiation regime in Europe (please note that the edition of PINPoints went to press before the crash of MH17).
- Anthony Wanis-St John describes why he thinks that the current round of talks with Iran on its nuclear program has an actual chance of succeeding in comparison to the previous round (which Anthony analyzed in the PIN book Unfinished Business).
- As noted in the intro above, Mark Anstey describes the negotiation legacy of Nelson Mandela, with important lessons for both practioners and scholars of conflict resolution and mediation.
- I. William Zartman has two contribution this edition. In the first he describes the mediation craze – the dozens of activities that have sprung up the past five years on mediation around the world. The second article digs into the concept of dialogue as a possible worthwhile subject of future studies in a time when most formal multilateral negotiation regimes are failing.
- Examples of that failure are given in the articles of Guy Olivier Faure, Mikhail Troitskiy and Mordechai Melamud. Geopolitical maneuvering is manifest today in most international negotiations. It has a direct effect on the possibilities to find a negotiated settlement for the territory disputes in the South China Sea, the topic of PIN’s China expert Guy Olivier Faure. Geopolitical maneuvering also seems to dictate the Sino-Russian pivot, which mostly exists as a counter weight to American Power, according to Mikhail Troitskiy. The article by Mordechai Melamud looks at verification regimes at the heart of WMD arms control. To find a negotiation solution is only meaningful with a form of effective verification, so natural the latter has been front and center in many WMD debates. However, the lack of verification possibilities has proven a serious bottleneck for the development of WMD arms crontol.
- Finally Rudolf Schüssler introduces the next PIN book project on focal points, which kicks of mid-September with a conference at the CIRC in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Download and read the new PINPoints. Do you prefer to print your copy? Download PINPoints in high res.
PINPoints is the network magazine of the Processes of International Negotiation (PIN) and published bi-annually by Clingendael Research
