Boston. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have invented a game -- the Chlorine Game -- that gives students a taste of negotiating an international environment treaty, and is said to point to a better approach to drawing up diplomatic protocols.
The task of the twelve players, representing eight countries and four non-governmental organizations, is to draft a treaty governing the worldwide use of organo-chlorines. This class of chemicals includes chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the oestrogen-mimicking compounds that some blame for declining sperm counts in men.
The game was invented by Lawrence Susskind and his colleagues in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Susskind wrote Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Agreements, and has advised governments on environmental treaty negotiations.
Students at MIT and Harvard Law School play the game. Several United Nations conferences and centres have also held rounds. The public will get a chance to play later this month when the game is made available through the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
Susskind says the game shows that treaties could be improved if people discussed the issues informally much earlier on. "Too often people go into these negotiations with specific instructions on what positions to take," says Susskind, who heads the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program.
The game also shows the importance of having professional mediators to encourage the dialogue, according to Susskind. The simulation suggests that non-governmental organizations, scientists, and representatives of industry can contribute significantly to negotiations. "But the international community still hasn't figured out how to deal with these people," he claims.
The game is welcomed as a useful training device by Bill Moomaw, a veteran of international treaty deliberations on climate change and ozone depletion who teaches environmental policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Massachusetts. "If diplomats could play this game before negotiations on organochlorines (or other chemicals) began, they'd have a better idea of how to come up with an effective treaty that doesn't throw out the good, safe chemicals with the bad," he says.
Moonaw also points out that the game has one big advantage over the real world -- you can make mistakes without destroying the environment, the economy, or national prestige.
Steve Nadis