Statement Drafting 101 - the art & craft of promoting/obstructing negotiations

Concerned that the negotiators have very different levels of skills when it comes to inspiring others to take actions/delaying any substantial discussions, adoptanegotiator developed this simple guide to help all make best use of their “three minutes” intervention to reach their objectives more effectively.

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How to use this guide: make sure to identify whether you belong to the progressive or to the obstructive category of countries. A good statement comprises of three elements: an introduction, and core message, and a closing. To build your draft statements: add three of the elements proposed below and calculate the number of points accumulated to see whether it will match with the objective of the statement.

Remember the GOLDEN RULE: while you are only allowed to speak for three minutes, any additional minute that you speak beyond this threshold will add two extra points of obstruction to account for the time lost for more constructive discussions.

1 Introduction

1.a - Raise the urgency (+2 points for a progressive statement)
Start by highlighting how serious the challenge of climate change is, how urgent finding solutions is, and how real the impacts already are. Use a personal narrative, describing a concrete example of climate impacts for your people.

1.b - Introduce your buddies (+1 point for obstructive statement + bonuses)
Speak on behalf of a large coalition, and make a point to slowly read all the names of the countries one by one. Bonus points available for the following actions:
- Build a coalition of more than 30 countries and still insist to read all the names,
- Speak on behalf of one of the most well established coalition, and read all the names of the countries even though you have already done so dozens of times in the past,
- Read the list of countries involved once, pretend that you got mixed up and fear of having forgotten one, start reading the list again.

1.c - Thank extensively the chair (+2 points for obstructive statement)
Start by thanking the chair for his nomination (even if the nomination took place months ago), recall how great memories you have with the past work of the chair, and slowly invoke totally unrelated memories.

1.d - “Wasn’t me” (+2 points for obstructive statement)
Press the button, once given the floor wait starring at the ceiling, then pretend to be surprised after a while and claim that you did not press the button (even though everyone knows that buttons do not push themselves down). Once the floor given to someone else, repeat the exercise.

2. The Core Message

2.a - Make a concrete proposal to move forward (+2 points for a progressive statement)
Deliver a very clear and straight forward message, expressing your expectations in a very concrete manner and highlight how you expect the process to deliver on those. Use less than one minute if you can make your point understood in a shorter time.

2.b - Speak in tongues (+1 point for obstructive statement)
Start your statement in one language, then swiftly switch to another. Make sure you change language a sufficient amount of time so as to confuse the UN interpreters. Repeat until you are confident that at the end of your statement, the chair will ask you to repeat the whole speech.

2.c - Invoke sports (+2 points for obstructive statement + bonus)
Make a sophisticated analogy referring to sports and in a way that does absolutely nothing to illustrate the point that you are making. Add an extra point of obstructive statement by quoting the poor performance of other countries in this sport so as to make them immediately react by using more sport analogies.

2.d - Go personal (+3 points for obstructive statement)
Launch a very direct attack against the integrity chair of the meeting in a way that requires at least a dozen of other countries to react and express their support for the officer under attack, so that when the dust finally settles, no one remembers what the original discussion was about.

3. The Closing

3.a - Lead by example (+2 points for constructiveness)
Conclude with a reference to climate action as something beneficial and positive, share stories of best practices, and highlights impressive domestic mitigation policies going beyond your international commitments and highlight that you stand ready to do more in a spirit of partnership.

3.b - Make a dodgy claim (+2 points for obstructive statement)
Make a blunt claim that climate action in other countries will reduce the consumption of your own dirty fuels and claim for compensation for the fact that you are unfortunate enough to be sitting on top of monstrous reserves of fossil fuels. Alternatively, you can also claim that your country is warmer/colder/smaller/bigger/wetter/drier/more urban… than others thus giving you “special circumstances” warranting ambitious climate policy.

3.c - The internal monologue (+2 points for obstructive statement)
Brainstorm with yourself vocally for at least one minute, preferably about an agenda item that has already been decided upon long ago.

3.d - Call for consultations (+3 points for obstructive statement)
Adopt a very strict position and remain stubborn until informal consultations are proposed for a later stage. During those, accept a compromise after having repeated your point a few times. Oppose the compromise once brought back to the plenary on the ground that your understanding was that the compromise proposed was different.

— end of training unit: level one —
I really wished that all delegations would only collect “progressive points” on the basis of their interventions in the plenary meetings. Unfortunately, I am afraid that all of these obstructive techniques are used during the sessions well too often. Given the heavy program of the negotiations, each hour lost in a plenary meeting due to the accumulation of obstructive delays a little bit more the key decisions expected from this process, and undermines further the trust among countries that all of them are really working towards the same goal. It seems as if some of the negotiating teams have for mandate to make best use of all the techniques mentioned above to prevent progress.

Often, it really makes you wonder why would one actually still pay attention. But I guess retaining interest and maintaining a high level of pressure and scrutiny on the process is the best way to respond to the obstructionists as well as to expose their strategies (CAN international attributed a fossil-of-the-day to China and US for their use of procedural matters in unconstructive manner).

For a more informative briefing on procedural discussions, check out my previous post reporting back from one week of agenda disputes and personal attacks.

Images: ENB Climate, John Lunddrew Kelly