ABSTRACT
Negotiation management in multilateral negotiations plays significant roles in the areas of climate change and world trade. Similarly to climate change and trade, biosafety negotiations collapsed in Cartagena in 1999, before they reached a successful conclusion in 2000 in Montreal. These two rounds of negotiation serve as the third case pair. A finding that process is also a decisive factor in this field would fortify the notion that negotiation management matters in complex multilateral negotiations, irrespective of the specific sub-field. The biosafety negotiations follow the consensus principle, just like the climate change, trade and most other economic or environmental regimes of the UN. Given that regulations bind all participating states, no delegation wanted to subscribe to actions they were not prepared to undertake. This decision rule impedes the reaching of agreement in the negotiations, and thereby raises the importance of negotiation management.
