Dear all,
Another for August consideration: Sebastián Rubiano-Galvis and I have just published this piece for a Special Issue of International Negotiation (on negotiations pedagogy more generally, which might well be of interest too). This is based on the exercise I have been running off and on since 2012 (!) and which Sebastián and I redesigned for on-line, asynchronous teaching. He has taught it at University of San Francisco and now at U of Washington. This article also builds on a piece we wrote for Jinnah et al, Teaching Environmental Justice: Practices to Engage Students and Build Community (2023).
This is not quite the “let’s reach a deal” assignment, nor do students typically have time to really devote a lot of time to it (20 plus units and full time jobs plus extracurriculars tend to have that effect, likewise does the average workload of the teaching team). It is mostly drafted for students who have little to no background in political science or international relations but could fit that group too. And we focus it around justice and empathy - specifically, how to step into another country’s shoes (to the extent possible) and think about representing interests different from one’s own. It could also be adapted quite well, we think, to plastics treaty negotiations.
Anyway, it can be taught in formats from in-person groups of 20 to what I am doing as I type: 250 students on-line, asynchronously during a 6 week summer intensive (with a 6 person team of TAs plus reader). This year, rather than the negotiations part, which admittedly is very had in this format, students are currently in groups, learning from each other about their countries and figuring out where their differences and commonalities could be on the Draft Resolution they are working on.
Please let me know if you would like to know more but forgive me if you don’t hear back for a couple of weeks! (But also, different subject, let me know if you are gong to be at APSA and would like to join a GEP meet-up on the Thursday),
Back to nudging students to contribute to discussions in their rooms (many of which are going very well, thankfully)
The link is
here. Abstract below.
Full cite: Rubiano-Galvis, Sebastian, and Kate O’Neill. "Experiential Learning in Times of Climate Crisis: An Environmental Justice Approach to International Negotiation Pedagogy." International Negotiation (2025): 1–31.
Best,
Kate
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Kate O'NeillProfessor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management,
Associate Dean of Student Affairs, Rausser College of Natural Resources
University of California at Berkeley
Abstract
Studies of negotiations pedagogy have found that roleplays and simulations play a critical role in successfully teaching international politics but are significantly underused. There has been little reflection on using simulations and roleplays in teaching and learning about global climate justice. In the last few years, we have designed a structured and scaffolded simulation of an international climate negotiation carried out in-person several times at University of California at Berkeley’s International Environmental Politics class and recently for the first time at University of San Francisco’s Global Environmental Politics class. The exercise is based on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – historically, the 2015 Paris Agreement, and subsequent negotiations. Drawing on various iterations of this exercise and the lessons we learned from it, as well as on accounts from students who have participated in the last couple of years, we propose a model to conceptualize and put into practice international negotiations pedagogy as it pertains to the international climate regime. Drawing on our experience conceiving and implementing this exercise, we argue that its emphasis on justice claims, empathy, and an ethically informed sense of student agency in and beyond the classroom contributes to and is in dialogue with scholarship on international negotiations pedagogy.
