Ethics

The current paper discusses and evaluated the UN Climate Talks as an example of a global negotiation situation. The impact of globalization and technology on negotiation is evaluated. The paper shows globalization and technology as the two forces that can potentially facilitate the process of achieving a common agreement. These two forces also create a serious challenge to every party that is not prepared to deal with them.
Negotiation Situation That Has Occurred in the Global Context
  Negotiation is a process, in which two or more parties, by means of discussion, seek to reach a consensus (or come to an agreement) with respect to the most problematic issues. In the majority of negotiation situations, such agreement is expected to satisfy all negotiation parties. Unfortunately, the real order of things is quite different. In reality, not all parties have an opportunity to use the results and the benefits of negotiation agreements. More often than not, because of legal, cultural, economic, and political disparities, international negotiation parties fail to understand and recognize the value of such agreements and to use them for their benefit. In the context of international negotiation realities, technology and globalization are fairly regarded as the two major forces the drive the direction and the development of negotiation strategies. Under the impact of globalization and technology, negotiation becomes culturally and politically diverse and technologically more effective. Simultaneously, whether international negotiation parties are able to reach a consensus largely depends on how well they are able to assess the impact of globalization trends on the negotiation process and whether they are prepared to use the latest technology achievements for the purpose of stability and agreement in the process of negotiating the results.
Negotiation Situation in the Global Context Climate and Global Warming
    The year 2009 witnessed the growing attention toward global climate issues. Dozens of international organizations and countries became active participants of various negotiations and meetings, which had to improve international awareness of the climate issues and develop a single universal and effective climate strategy. The United Nations Climate Talks in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 covered a broad range of issues and involved hundreds of political leaders they also sought to promote the culture of inclusiveness and openness in international negotiations. However, the UN Climate Talks also became a good test to how well negotiation parties could accept, assess, and use the impact of globalization trends on the process of negotiating results, and how well they were prepared to use technology as an instrument of achieving mutual agreement.
    One of the major negotiation problems during the UN Climate Talks was caused by delays and diversions created by a group of poor and emerging nations intent on making their dissatisfaction clear (Broder, 2009). The poor and emerging nations became the stumbling block on the worlds way to discussing the most serious climate problems. On the one hand, the so-called Group of 77 sought to strengthen its political position at the summit and to establish a vision of being a powerful decision-making force. On the other hand, many poor and emerging countries were willing to use the new negotiation situation for the sake of achieving their narrow political goals for example, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez made the rich guilty of destroying the planet, while China continued to raise technical and mostly irrelevant objections to the basic text of the final agreement (Broder, 2009). It should be noted, that the Group of 77 is virtually a team of 130 different countries, including such small and poor states like Vanuatu, and due to the number and diversity of its members, the group is likely to gain and use far greater negotiation power compared to that of, for example, Brazil (Broder, 2009). Generally, the UN Climate Talks signified the international community failure to lead effective international negotiations. By involving so many countries and parties in the negotiation process, the UN created a challenge, which it could not meet. The organization could not predict and assess the impacts, which globalization and technology produce on negotiation in global contexts. For this reason, multiple negotiation parties were virtually unable to reconcile their political interests with those of other negotiators, as well as with the broader objectives of the multidimensional climate talks.


Globalization and Negotiation Assessing the Emerging Disparities
    Obviously, the impact of globalization on global negotiations is two-fold. On the one hand, globalization opens geographical frontiers and brings the parties of international negotiations closer. On the other hand, globalization creates political, cultural, and legal challenges and requires that international negotiation parties take into account the existing disparities between them. To begin with, globalization does not minimize the legal pluralism, which currently exists in the global negotiation contexts. Very often, due to the legal barriers and the complexity of legal implications, even the best international agreement may turn into a legal nightmare, simply because not all countries will be able to adopt it and use its benefits (Phatak  Habib, 1996). Although globalization makes it easier to bring negotiation parties together, it cannot minimize the legal controversies between different countries, and the situation during the UN Climate Talks exemplifies the diversity of legal and political views on the problems of climate change and global warming. In the same way, globalization does not minimize the disparities between national political and economic systems but, on the contrary, makes them more obvious. The openness, which is the direct product of globalization, reveals the hidden facets of political and economic environments, which negotiation parties should take into account in the process of reaching an agreement. Regardless of whether one talks about political or business negotiations, parties involved should thoroughly study the potential political fallout of an international business deal before it is negotiated and the agreement is signed (Phatak  Habib, 1996). However, even legal and political implications in the context of global negotiations are not as serious as those of cultural and ideological character.
Globalization and diversity go hand in hand one the one hand, countries and international negotiation participants strive to form multiple unions and political mergers to pursue their interests on the other hand, the search for mergers and unity is also accompanied by the negotiation parties desire to preserve their cultural and ideological uniqueness. Globalization opens the gateway to inclusiveness, and more and more countries are invited to participate in multilateral discussions similar to the UN Climate Talks, but cultural differences and norms between the negotiators have a significant influence on how they behave throughout the process (Phatak  Habib, 1996). For example, where the American party will be likely to make numerous small concessions and share significant amount of information about their interests and potential limitations, Japanese negotiators will tend to keep away from active information exchange and will leave possible concessions until the very late in the negotiation process (Phatak  Habib, 1996). As a result, the lack of cultural and legal awareness creates a situation, when none of the parties has a chance to achieve the anticipated negotiation outcomes. However, technology could potentially become a successful mediating element in the process of negotiating international business and political outcomes.
Technology and Negotiation The Effects
It would be fair to say that technology does not simply change how we hold international negotiations, but it also changes the ways in which we think about these negotiations. Technology in the context of negotiations produces a whole multitude of impacts, from improving the quality of interpersonal communication up to changing the dynamics and organization of different social and political systems (Purdy, Nye  Balakrishnan, 2000). The impact of communication media on negotiations is probably the most significant and the most positive, for these are communication media (including videoconferencing and computer chats) that bring negotiation parties together and let them discuss even the most problematic issues without the need to travel. The UN Climate Talks and similar global negotiations although require physical presence of negotiation parties but are both technologically sophisticated and advanced that political leaders are given an opportunity to understand each other by using professional interpreting programs makes technology the essential component of any international negotiation success.
Unfortunately, technology does not eliminate the existing cultural and legal disparities between countries nor does it change individual and political perceptions about them. Rather, the success of global negotiations depends on how well the parties are prepared to use these technologies in the process of negotiating results. In its current state, technology often goes far beyond our expectations, making us unprepared to deal with it (Purdy, Nye  Balakrishnan, 2000). For example, the participants of the UN Climate Talks in December could be given access to the basic information about other parties, and technology and the Internet could help them deal with unexpected cultural and legal challenges. Simultaneously, the parties that, for some reason or other, were not able to personally attend the meeting could participate in the discussion by using media technologies, including teleconferences. In this context, where technology may potentially facilitate the process of achieving the general agreement, it also creates a serious technological challenge, which all negotiation parties are bound to meet if they want to protect and pursue their political and business interests. Both globalization and technology have a potential to become the two driving forces in the effectiveness and efficiency of the multilateral negotiation processes, but fulfilling this task will be impossible without training negotiation parties to use the benefits of technology and globalization in the process of achieving mutual agreement.