Introduction
Beginning in mid 2009, the Institute will undertake a sustained effort to bring proposals before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
We will also request leaders within selected NGOs and other organizations to assists this initiative.
While one can reasonably expect initial rejection from various officials, there is the expectation that once a small number of leaders have a vision of how this tool can be shaped and used on a very large scale, they will act forcefully to advocate that others share this vision.
Debate
Once brought onto the national discourse, Public Talks will precipitate a rigorous debate as it will potentially affect such a wide range of different issues and conflicts across the globe.
Advocates will be able to make a powerful case to both members of Congress and the American public that Public Talks could be focused in very effective ways to encourage agreement where other strategies have failed. It will not be lost on leaders that Public Talks is a very cost effective method to approach conflicts.
Some critics will construct scenarios whereby the U.S. and valued allies will be forced to negotiate in public with discredited adversaries. The counter to this argument is that the U.S. should take the lead in crafting the rules and terms to address this concern.
In the end, two arguments will solidify support. The first is that Public Talks is an option after private talks fail and the rules and terms can prevent some egregious use of this process. The second is that creating a level playing field between adversaries will encourage a greater public recognition of historical truth.
Acceptance or Rejection
If the U.S decides to authorize the creation of this new foreign policy tool, work to construct Public Talks will undoubtedly begin directly afterwards. The decision concerning the precise organizational structure to create Public Talks would be made at the highest levels of the U.S. Government.
As stated on the Home Page: “If the U.S. rejects Public Talks, the next in a series of individual proposals will be to the E.U. If needed, successive proposals will be repeated to other large organizations and nations that will include the U.N. Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand and other nations largely perceived as potential “honest brokers.”
To legitimately create and oversee Public Talks, that entity needs to have international credibility and financial resources. Thus, one argument in favor of U.S. action is that rejecting Public Talks may effectively abdicate future control of the process.
Developing the Structure
Creating the formal structure for Public Talks may take one or two years and perhaps involve hundreds of people as there are far more details and permutations involved than the casual observer might imagine. Bringing in representatives of many countries around the world will itself be a difficult but necessary task to ensure widespread acceptance.
There will need to be an official Public Talks Web site and a policy concerning what print media will be paid to distribute Dialogue Documents that would allow for both those in the affected region and the world public to have access to this information. There will probably be one newspaper or magazine for each side of a conflict. Then one or two large international print media will make these documents widely available, perhaps over successive issues depending upon demand. The Q & A section of the Institute’s web site deals with this issue in more detail.
All copyrights and related assets surrounding Public Talks, including the URL www.publictalks.org will be given by the Institute for Public Dialogue freely and without conditions to the U.S. or other responsible body that takes over the development of this process. A small team at the Institute will seek a non-managerial role in the formal construction of Public Talks.
Once a major entity decides to develop Public Talks, the Institute for Public Dialogue will have accomplished its objective and will be dissolved.
Initial Implementation
As the Rules and Terms section of the Institute’s Web site states, there are two entirely different situations that will shape this implementation. The first is where two adversaries agree to engage in Public Talks, the second is where one challenges another without any guarantee of a response in kind.
There would undoubtedly be deadlines for a given side to provide the managing entity with their full content for a given Dialogue Document (In the case of the U.S., we would expect this managing entity to be associated with or overseen by the State Department, but this is a decision not of this Institute but of others.)
In the coming weeks and months, the Institute will refine these rules and terms and will be creating full color examples of what a series of these Dialogue Documents could look like. We have chosen a fictional conflict and will be developing these documents to coincide with the aforementioned rules and terms.
Managing the Process
The long-range objective of the rules and terms is to establish a level communication playing field, with minimal involvement of a moderator.
The inherent problem with a moderator is the same problem with envoys and third parties when they are brought in to oversee private talks. This party (no matter how well intentioned) is shaped by personal, political and cultural biases. If these private talks fail, blame is assigned vigorously, and this third party becomes subject to criticism. The criticism eventually reaches such proportions that it undermines the entire negotiating process.
Yet at the outset - as a practical matter - potential complications may require an active “managing role” of this process to make technical decisions along the way. And as long as this managing body is transparent with publicly established members beforehand, this should minimize, yet not eliminate, any initial problems.
The Evolution of the rules and terms for Public Talks
As this process unfolds, both leaders and the public will weigh in with what worked and what did not and what could be improved. What should the criteria be for an acceptable challenge? Should the initial history section be longer or shorter? Should there be more questions or perhaps more space to answer the given questions? Should there be more or less time between rounds of Dialogue Documents? These and many other sections and terms will be heavily scrutinized and would be naturally modified over time.
|
