I’m no expert on how multilateral or United Nations agreements/treaties are typically negotiated. Nor, in researching the genesis of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was I especially focused on the intricacies of the negotiation strategies/tactics. When you know little about a subject, you accept everything you read as “normal.” So it came as a slight surprise to note from this 1959 article of reflection that “how” the IAEA negotiations were framed and conducted was not “normal.” I like the author’s use of the word “unprecedented.”
Three features thus characterized the negotiating process. First, discussions on the Statute ended, but did not begin, as genuine multi-lateral diplomacy. The United States in 1954 made no effort to include atomic have-nots in the negotiations, and the eight-power group was therefore highly unrepresentative of the ultimate membership of the Agency. Second, the General Assembly of the United Nations exerted considerable influence upon the legislative process. The Assembly criticized the American proposal that comments on the Statute be communicated by interested powers directly to Washington and insisted on multilateral diplomacy in the formulation stage of policy. Many delegates felt that communications to Washington could have been disposed of one by one in a series of bilateral discussions, without the collective will of the General Assembly ever being expressed. The twelve-power negotiating group became a small but representative body including those states most vitally interested in matters of atomic energy. Finally, it was unprecedented for a special group outside the United Nations committee structure to draft international legislation. The fact that unanimity on a highly controversial subject prevailed in the group suggested to many delegations the possibility of using a similar drafting technique in the future.
Stoessinger, J. G. 1959. “Atoms for Peace: The International Atomic Energy Agency.” In Organizing Peace in the Nuclear Age, edited by Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, 117-233. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, p. 124.
