Computer-assisted negotiations: bigger problems need better tools
- American Arbitration Association, New York, NY
Environmental-energy disputes are less often of the distributive kind (those found frequently in labor-management controversies); they are more often caused by the frustration of parties with conflicting interests who fail to fully comprehend the interdpendence of the complex issues involved in a planning or regulatory process. Inflexible positions make it difficult to develop constructive and credible solutions. Additional options must be created by developing solutions representing tradeoffs between environmental and energy objectives. The role of the impartial intervenor has therefore broadened from dispute-settlement and mediation alone to assisting the parties in the entire decision-making process. As process manager he attends to details that until recently were left to common sense and common practice. In this role, he is as concerned with the avoidance as with the resolution of disputes. An important part of his task is to move participants from an adversarial to a collaborative attitude and behavior. Environmental-energy disputes are too large and complex for currently available dispute settlement procedures. New tools for resolving these disputes are being developed. Environmental professionals must learn to be process managers so they can match these tools to the many different kinds of disputes that arise during the decision-making process. An environmental-energy model developed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is described, and its potential for generating tradeoffs among conflicting power-plant-siting objectives is explained. Computer-Assisted negotiations (CAN) developed by the AAA are introduced as a method for reaching compromise. A research team of the American Arbitration Association and the FWS is now experimenting with ways to use CAN and the multi-objective model as tools for mediation and collaborative problem solving. The early experience of this research is described and analyzed.
- OSTI ID:
- 6652298
- Journal Information:
- Environ. Prof.; (United States), Vol. 2:1; Conference: 5. annual conference of the NAEP, Washington, DC, USA, 21 Apr 1980
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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