Establishing Trust and Getting Started

Establishing Trust and Getting Started

Katie Hetherington: Hello, and welcome to this session on establishing trust and getting started. This session overviews the key aspects of preparing for and establishing trust in advance of a peace negotiation. My name is Katie Hetherington, and I'm a program manager here at the Public International Law and Policy Group. And I'm joined today by Dr. Paul Williams, President and Founder of PILPG, and Professor Milena Sterio, Managing Director at PILPG. Welcome both. 

Prof. Milena Sterio: Pleasure to be here. 

Dr. Paul Williams: Thanks, Katie. It's great to be here with you and Milena. 

Why is establishing trust important?

Katie Hetherington: So, to start off our session today, Milena, can you please explain to us why this topic is important for negotiators and mediators to understand?

Prof. Milena Sterio: Of course, Katie, this might be one of the most fundamental and important topics, because a negotiation at its core is about reaching an agreement between two or multiple parties on terms that all of these parties are willing to agree upon, but also are willing to uphold. And if the parties to a negotiation do not trust each other or do not trust the process, they're going to be much, much more likely to either not participate in the negotiations, or, to also not uphold the terms of the negotiated agreement that they have all agreed upon.

And also, if civil society doesn't trust the process to work properly, they might not have an interest in helping or advancing the enforcement, the implementation of any peace agreement reached. In a nutshell, it does boil down to trust. 

Types of Trust

Katie Hetherington: Thanks, Milena. So, it seems like we're talking about a couple of different types of trust here. Paul, could you explain these a bit further?

Dr. Paul Williams: So Katie, I think there are a number of different dimensions of trust. The first is the trust in the mediator, it's oftentimes exceedingly difficult to find an unbiased, competent, trustworthy mediator. The United Nations tends to be a source of mediators and then, you know, other types of ad hoc arrangements. But the mediator will need to engage in behavior, which indicates their neutrality in a negotiation and indicates their willingness to set aside whatever views they represent as an organization or whatever country they're from in order to help the parties reach a mutually beneficial official and durable agreement.

You can't just say I'm the mediator, trust me. And in fact, when I work with parties, I say there's no such thing as a bilateral negotiation. If there's a mediator, it's a trilateral negotiating arrangement. The mediators have their own vested interest, which is okay. You can still trust them as long as you know what their interests are and as long as they minimize those interests and promote the interests of the parties.

The second dimension is the trust between the delegations themselves. As we've mentioned in other sessions, they’re mortal enemies back home, they're engaged in an armed conflict, and during the negotiations, oftentimes the conflict continues.

So, it's easy to say they should trust each other, but it's really difficult to build that trust. And I think that it's important for mediators and those supporting peace processes to not be naive about this, and to understand that they only have to trust that they will abide by their word and that they'll abide by the agreement. You can also trust that they're going to be there to maximize their interests and to minimize your delegation's interest. You can trust that they're going to be nefarious and diabolical and strategic, and all kinds of things in the negotiations. That's okay, because that's how negotiations play.

You just want to trust that whatever the rules are that you set for the negotiations, you want to be able to build trust that they'll play by their rules. And the reason why I characterize it that way, as there's often a misconception that, oh, if we can get the parties to be relaxed, or friendly, or we'll do joint social engagements and no, they know what each other. Just make sure that they trust in the process and that they trust that they're going to be negotiating good faith.

So, for instance, when I was with the Bosnians at the Dayton negotiations, there was a grass field between where the housing complex was and where the negotiating complex was and one day, we were walking back and forth and there were some footballs, European footballs scattered about, and a couple of American footballs scattered about on the lawn, and we joked about some kids were here playing European football or American football at the break.

And one of the mediators said, oh, no, no, we put those balls out there on the field because we were hoping maybe the Serbs and the Croats and the Bosniaks would have a little pickup game together and build trust. And it was like, come on, guys, we're talking about atrocity crimes and genocide here and mortal enemies. Let's literally not play games trying to build trust.

It was completely inconsequential, but the parties did trust themselves and each other enough to sign the accords, and they trusted in NATO to deploy the NATO forces and they trusted the Americans and the Europeans to appoint an effective high representative that got a Dayton agreement.

It wasn't because they were out there playing football together with one another.

Building trust in the overall negotiations process

Katie Hetherington: Thanks, Paul. So, Milena, what are the basics for fostering this first type of trust that we've been discussing, trust in the overall process of negotiations? 

Prof. Milena Sterio: Katie, it is really fundamental that parties have trust in the process, because oftentimes, we're dealing with parties that, as Paul previously mentioned, have been shooting at each other, killing each other, they might not inherently trust each other, but if they have trust in the overall process, they're going to be that much more likely to come to a negotiated agreement. 

So, first, it is important that parties agree to the process. So you want to make sure that all the sides, all the different parties that are part of the negotiation, have agreed to a specific process.

You then also want to make sure that your delegation communicates to the other parties expressing, specifically, that it is able and willing to negotiate in good faith seriously towards a resolution that will ultimately be beneficial to everybody involved. So from your side, you want to express all of this very clearly to the other side, yes, I'm here to negotiate in good faith. 

You also want to signal very expressly that you're willing to implement any negotiated agreement, and that you're willing to adhere to the terms of any negotiated future peace agreement. You want to be specific about this, and that goes into this issue of signaling good faith.

You're here to negotiate in good faith. You're willing to abide by the terms of a future negotiated agreement. You're going to be willing to enforce an agreement. That type of express communication will strengthen the trust in the overall negotiating process and will strengthen the trust in your particular delegation and in the specific negotiator.

So, both sides really have to be willing to express that kind of willingness to trust the process, to abide by the terms of the agreement, to say, yes, we're here to negotiate in good faith. 

Building trust between the delegations

Katie Hetherington: Thanks Milena, and Paul, you certainly touched upon this in your previous answer, but perhaps you can elaborate on the ways in which we might establish trust between the delegations themselves.

Dr. Paul Williams: Well, Katie, there are a number of ways of establishing trust between opposing delegations, one is to create a back channel with members of the other delegation. I've been surprised at how many times I've chatted with a member of a delegation that I'm advising. Okay, run me through those on the other delegation, what I should know about them. I'm an external lawyer, Milena and I, when we do these peace talks, we come in and we're like, okay, we know our team, we know our clients, but tell us about the other side. I'm surprised. They'll say we went to university together and such, and oh, we were in the student union together and oh, such and such. Our parents live in the same neighborhood. I'm like, wait, you guys all know one another. And they do, they just ended up on opposite sides of the conflict for various reasons.

Those are ideal opportunities to create a back channel communication. Now, I want to be crystal clear. A back channel communication is not secret. Your entire delegation needs to know you're having back channel communication. And when you have that back channel communication, you should do it in public area, in a public coffee shop, you walk down the hallway together, and if you're at the United Nations, there's the delegates lounge, or there's a serpentine cafe and people see that you're doing that because you're obviously not conspiring or doing anything mischievous if you're doing it in the open, but you're exchanging ideas about these three things, this is our red line, these we might be willing to compromise on, this is what we're going to propose tomorrow. Just wanted to give you a heads up, get some of your preliminary thoughts on it. And you can also complain about the mediator together.

Most of the time, these back channel negotiations, they just complain about the mediators, but it's important for the mediator to encourage these backchannel negotiations and to be comfortable with them. Importantly, the mediator should not have backchannel negotiations with the parties separately, because that will erode the trust that Milena was just talking about, which is so essential.

The second thing that the parties could do to build trust and the other side is to red team the other side, to do exercises and negotiation simulations where they develop a deep understanding of not only the positions, but also the interests of the other side so that when they're interacting with an assertive, with an edgy, with an acerbic party on the other side, they're like, we've heard this before because they've role played it out.

They've simulated it out privately before they go to the negotiations. So, if you yelled at your own delegation, pretending to be the other delegation, and then you go and the other delegation is yelling at you, you're like yeah, we heard this already before, it doesn't really have that edge.

And it allows you to see past that because there's a lot of performance art and theatrics. In negotiation, it shouldn't undermine the trust that you have because you only need to trust them enough to get to an agreement. You don't need to become their best friends. 

And then, the third dimension of building trust, and this is important in particular for the mediators to be aware of and respectful of cultural differences, cultural norms, and there are a multitude of cultural norms that come into play in negotiations. 

The appropriateness of the venue, the break times for religious observations, the timing of negotiations and sometimes parties are homogeneous, they're just, conflict over power and resources, but oftentimes, the parties are very heterogeneous and come from different religious, cultural, tribal geographic backgrounds and have a very diverse set of cultural norms.

And it's up to the mediator to ensure that they are respecting these cultural norms and providing appropriate space. I have been surprised at how many times there is a sense that there's international cultural norms, and everybody should subscribe to those that suspend our cultural norms and practices when we come to an international mediation.

That's not at all the case. Then you lose trust with the mediator. And you lose trust with the other party if they're also being disrespectful of your norms. 

Preconditions

Katie Hetherington: Thank you, Paul. These are some really useful tools and considerations for building trust between the delegations, and continuing along this theme, Milena, can you tell us some more about preconditions? 

Prof. Milena Sterio: Of course, so one very important option that parties might consider is to agree to a set of preconditions. Preconditions are terms that parties will require each other to fulfill before coming to the negotiating table. Now, so what that means is, before we meet on May 15th next, each party has to accomplish A, B, and C.

These types of preconditions are usually binding, which means that if one of the parties does not fulfill the preconditions that are established by the other party, then that other party has the right to refuse beginning negotiations. So, if we agree that each of us is going to do A, B, and C before our next session on May 15th, if one of us actually does not fulfill that set of preconditions, the other side can say, you know what, we're not going to meet on May 15th because you haven't done A, B, and C.

And so this is a very useful way to try to ascertain, to try to gauge how serious one party or the other party is about actually engaging in negotiations, because if somebody is not serious, they're going to be less likely to actually ignore the preconditions and not abide by those preconditions. And conversely, if somebody is serious and is trying to negotiate in good faith, they're going to do everything within their powers to fulfill that set of preconditions.

And so that willingness of a party to fulfill its set of preconditions before the negotiation session, can actually help to foster trustworthiness in the eyes of the other parties. If you have someone who's coming to the negotiating table, who has a perfect record of abiding by all of the various preconditions that they have agreed to, the other parties are that much more likely to say, okay, this is somebody who's here to negotiate in good faith. This is somebody who is actually willing to be here, who's willing to listen to us, who's willing to do everything to make sure that we come to a negotiated agreement. 

So, this is a very useful and important tool for building trust between the various negotiating delegations. 

What do preconditions look like?

Katie Hetherington: Thanks, Milena. And Paul, building on this, can you give us a sense of what typical preconditions look like?

Dr. Paul Williams: Yeah, well, Katie, let's start with what they don't look like. Oftentimes, we've sat with parties preparing for a peace negotiation and we said, right, let's discuss preconditions. We had one party, which was an external party seeking self determination. They said, yes, our precondition is that the other side accepts our position that we are entitled to become an independent country, and then we'll negotiate how that happens. Pretty sure that's not a precondition. Pretty sure that's what you're going to negotiate about. But oftentimes, both parties or a government party will say our precondition is that the non-state armed actors disarm.

How can we negotiate under the threat of the use of force by our own civilians? That's why you're negotiating. They threaten force and are using force because of what's happening in your country. That's what's getting you to the negotiation table. If your precondition is that they disarm or defang, that's not a precondition. That's what you negotiate. 

And so, you'll oftentimes find, as a mediator, that you're faced with one or both of the parties basically putting their final outcomes as preconditions, and as a mediator, you shouldn't be shocked or surprised by that. As a party, when the other party puts the final outcome as a precondition, don't be shocked or surprised. You come back and you say that was all really interesting, but preconditions are actually designed to build momentum to start a negotiation, to address these questions that you actually want to deal with. How about we do a prisoner exchange? How about we create a temporary ceasefire or a cessation of hostilities.

And that's important rather than a permanent, which we've talked about in others, which is where the parties disarm, they separate, let's just stop shooting for a period of time, and then that creates positive momentum for the negotiations. But, as Milena noted, you want the parties to go in having met those preconditions, make him a light touch. 

We were working with a party in West Africa, and their precondition was the release of all political prisoners, and many of them were held illegitimately, but many of them were held legitimately for legitimate acts of violence. It takes a long time to get individuals who've been convicted of crimes released from prison or paroled.

So, we helped them craft a commitment on the other side to pursue the release of those prisoners. And then, it also became one of the issues because the other side could commit to being committed to pursue the release of these prisoners, and then you could build some momentum in that sense.

So, it's just a signaling of where this process could lead to. It's not actually a negotiation on substantive issues prior to the negotiation itself. 

Establishing trust within the delegation

Katie Hetherington: Great. Thank you. Both. It's really helpful to understand the scope of this particular tool. Milena, could you talk a little further about how members of delegations can establish trust internally with one another? 

Prof. Milena Sterio: Katie, this is another really important question because oftentimes people assume that a delegation is a monolith, that everybody in a delegation team gets along great and they all have the same opinions and positions on everything.

It's important to remember that oftentimes, members of a delegation team may have very different views on how the negotiation should proceed. And so, to establish trust and cohesion within a group like this, it is important to have very clear hierarchical structures from the get go. A delegation is going to need to know who is in charge, who is authorized to speak’ they're going to need very clear communication channels that will allow all the various members of a delegation to feel like the leaders of their delegation have heard their views. 

They're going to have to set up regular internal meetings for all the delegates so that everybody can be heard, so that everybody can be well informed, so that everybody can express their views, but it's important to remember that at the actual negotiation, not all the delegates are going to be able to speak.

So that's why it's important to have a clear hierarchical structure to know who is authorized to speak when and who can trump someone else's views in an actual negotiation session. Now, delegates can build trust with each other through adequate training and adequate preparation.

And I know that in other training videos, we have emphasized the importance of preparation. If you are adequately prepared, and if you have trained for a particular negotiation, that will ultimately help everyone to understand each other's positions, each other's common interests as well as each delegate's negotiation style and their respective strengths and weaknesses as a negotiator.

So, if you're doing your homework, you're doing your preparation, you're going to be able to find out among your team members who might be best positioned to speak at various times because, for example, this person is a great speaker, this person can present our arguments very eloquently, or maybe this other person is great at other things, but they're not the best speaker, so maybe they shouldn't be the first one to speak. 

So that type of preparation is going to be key to having a successful negotiation. And then a couple of other things that I would mention is that it's important to collaboratively among a delegation develop so called red lines. Red lines are minimum criteria, minimum requirements that delegation has to include in any agreement with the other parties.

So your red line is basically, I need to have X included in any negotiated agreement. And if X is not there, we cannot agree. It's important that all members of a negotiating team are on board and that all members know what the team's red line is.

And then secondly, it's important to identify the so-called best alternative to a negotiated agreement, also known by its acronym BATNA, which helps to clearly define the cost of failure within the negotiations.

So, if I can't achieve my best version of this negotiated agreement, what is the best alternative to my best version? And is this best alternative something that I can actually agree with? And so, by the time the delegates enter the negotiation room, they should all know each other, have a good sense of each other's personalities, strengths, weaknesses, each other's perspectives, position, interest, and also they all need to know what the red lines are and what their best alternative to a negotiated agreement is.

This will prevent disagreement among delegation members and will ultimately help achieve a negotiated agreement with the other side. 

Building trust with constituencies

Katie Hetherington: Thanks so much, Milena. So let's turn to our final trust building focus. Paul, could you explain a little more about how delegations can build trust with their constituencies?

Dr. Paul Williams: Yeah, Katie, it's very important, as you note, to build trust with your constituencies because, if you get too far ahead, and you make too many concessions in order to reach an agreement that you haven't brought your constituents along with you, then you'll go back, and the agreement won't succeed, won't be adopted by parliament, or won't be ratified by the local commanders, or simply won't be embraced by the refugees or by the I. D. P’s.  So, and it's easier to say that; you can’t just tweet out daily updates to your fan base. You actually have to be intensively engaged with your constituents because these negotiations frequently occur outside of the country, often occur in a venue that's secluded, or at least it's not that accessible.

And so, one of the ways in which you build one of the principles which underlines the approach of many of the delegations that we advise, is transparency and honesty. Now, of course, you have the mediator saying, okay, this is all confidential. You're like, okay, we're going to do a press conference every day and tell our constituents. How's it going? And what we're talking about, the good, the bad and the ugly, but it's going to be something that parties have to do with a constituent base. If you're an authoritarian regime, you just talk to yourself. You don't have to talk to anybody. But many of the parties that are engaged in these negotiations need to bring along the population.

For instance, at the moment, the Sudanese civilian delegation is literally representing over 45 million Sudanese civilians. How do you keep them all informed? You be transparent. You tell them what you can and you, in a sense, make yourself available. And nowadays through social media, there's some opportunities to do that.

One of our clients that we've worked with, the Armenians during the Key West negotiations, brought a group of constituents to Key West. Now, because of the dynamic and engaged Armenian diaspora in the United States, they were able to pull together representatives of all of the constituents in Armenia from the American diaspora, and they were there physically present in Key West and every evening, the foreign minister and the president would meet with their constituents, or at least representatives of their constituents, because they were all tied back into their families and friends back in Armenia, and they would ask for guidance and for advice and for ideas from the constituents who were there observing, or they even said, look, this is our constituent focus group. They're here to help us refine our negotiating position and they can communicate back out that they were involved in that, and that they have an understanding of the difficulties we're facing because if you go to an observer constituent group and say, look, here's what the mediator is suggesting, here's what the other side is suggesting. Here's what we're suggesting. We're probably gonna have to find a compromise in the middle. What do you think? They're all gonna say, No, don't compromise. Okay, we can all go home now. We won't have an agreement. Oh no, we actually want an agreement. Okay, we have to compromise.

Okay. What do you think? And that helps to bring the constituents into the process without actually bringing them into the room. So seeking that input from the constituents is really important. 

Then I would also just like to use your question to make a plug for civilian engagement. As much as we all talk about it and teach about civilian participation, negotiations are almost always between guys with guns, the government guys with guns, the opposition guys with guns. And if you really want a durable piece in today's world, you need to have civilian delegations present. Really easy to say, really difficult to do in an effective manner. 

But I think a lot of attention has to be given by mediators to how do you at least have some civilian component represented in or near the negotiations in order to add value to the negotiations, provide legitimacy to the negotiations and ensure that you're laying the foundation for a durable agreement, it's not just getting to yes, it's staying at yes.

That's important. 

How is trust building implemented at the start of negotiations?

Katie Hetherington: Thank you, Paul. Great closing line there. Absolutely correct. Milena, now that we've discussed all of these options for building trust, how would these be implemented at the start of negotiations? And can you walk us through what trust building might look like on day one? 

Prof. Milena Sterio: Katie, hopefully on day one, we're only talking about building trust between the opposing delegations.

Hopefully by day one, each delegation already has built trust among the various members of their own delegation. So, hopefully by day one, each delegation has members who clearly understand the process, the dynamics, how they're going to communicate with their constituencies, who is going to speak at which times, and hopefully, trust has already been built within each of the delegations. 

So on day one, the biggest remaining trust related dynamic is going to be between the opposing delegations. Now, hopefully also some trust has already been built through pre negotiation communications, maybe through a set of preconditions that we already discussed.

Now, fast forward to day one of the actual negotiation. What does this look like? So first, you should definitely consider very seriously who shows up on day one. Which individuals show up on day one on behalf of your delegation, this is going to impact the degree of trust between the various delegations.

For example, you have to make sure that there's some level of parity that the negotiator that the negotiators who arrive should be about the same level of stature as their counterparts. 

For example, if the other side has their country's vice president who shows up on day one and you have a mid level negotiator, that is simply not going to look good. That might not foster trust between you and the other side. You want to make sure that neither side is at a significant disadvantage and that neither side offends the other by sending lower ranking negotiators to meet with much higher ranking negotiators.

In order to make sure that doesn't happen, you're going to need to prepare. You're going to need to engage in research. You're going to need to engage in communication with the other side to know who is coming for them to know what the titles of the various negotiators are again to make sure that you're not showing up a day one with high level people negotiating with low level people. 

And I know that in other videos, we have already emphasized the importance of preparing for any negotiation. Second, I would mention simple things such as politeness, being polite, being friendly. At least at the beginning, this goes a long way in establishing trust with the other side.

You want to be mindful about how you greet your counterpart. You want to make sure that you're respecting the relevant cultural customs and norms, and this also might require adequate preparation, adequate homework. So, you want to be careful and mindful about your tone, your word choice, the volume of your spoken language, expressions you use, body movement, formality.

You don't want to address the other side by their first name if, within their cultural norms, this is not done. Or if within their cultural norms this is how it's always done, you want to make sure that you use someone's first name. So again, this goes into extensive preparation that is necessary for any successful negotiation.

And then, last but certainly not least, you don't want to prejudge your counterparts during these initial encounters on day one. So, you don't want to prejudge the other side on day one and say, oh, I'm not going to trust them. They're not that smart. They're not that good. If you do that, you are much more likely to engage in poor judgments yourself, to engage in poor decision making yourself, and to prejudge the outcome of a negotiation.

So, day one is crucial in terms of building trust. It sets the tone for the entire subsequent negotiation, and it is crucial that your delegation shows up on day one, having done its homework, knowing how to address the other side, knowing who to send, and making sure that by respecting all of the relevant customs, norms, practices, you start the negotiations by establishing trust with the other side.

Katie Hetherington: Thank you, Milena. And you're absolutely right. We elaborate on these points that you've just mentioned throughout the other training sessions in these modules, so these will be really useful to refer to as well. That brings us to the end of today's discussion. Thank you so much, Paul and Milena, and thank you to all of our attendees joining the session. In our remaining videos in this module, we'll discuss further aspects of the negotiation process. Thank you. 

Dr. Paul Williams: Thank you, Katie and Milena. 

Prof. Milena Sterio: Thank you.