Negotiation of International Oil Tanker Standards: An Application of Multiattribute Value Theory

Quantitative decision analysis techniques are applied to a particular problem of bargaining and negotiation: How should a negotiating team representing the United States prepare for an international conference on tanker safety and pollution prevention? The negotiating team had a short time to prepare for the Conference, which was to consider a number of complex and difficult measures on which there were considerable differences of opinion. The analytic approach used focused on a multiattribute value model that incorporated the views of many of the negotiating countries. This model was refined over the preparation period by both analysts and negotiators. The U.S. negotiators found that the model was useful for evaluating alternative proposals, anticipating and understanding the negotiating positions of other countries, generating promising compromise proposals, and communicating with other U.S. interest groups. The modeling effort helped the negotiators to identify a compromise proposal very similar to the one finally adopted by the Conference. As a result of the Conference important new international measures to improve the safety of oil tankers and help prevent pollution of the seas from ships were adopted.