Our society has b e c o m e conscious of the risks and costs of not dealing effectively with c o m p l e x public disputes, but we have not adopted n e w methods for reaching solutions. Some of these disputes are so c o n v o l u t e d -the storage of hazardous waste, for e x a m p l e --t h a t m a n y officials avoid dealing with them. In some cases parties go to court or argue adversarial positions before regulatory bodies. They turn their interests over to lawyers or g o v e r n m e n t administrators, who, whatever their professional competence m a y be, have no direct stake in the outcome. The courts are overw h e l m e d with an ever-increasing load of cases, m a n y of which are so complex and technical that judgments based on points of law only exacerbate the problems.Frustrations over the consequences of delay, the failure to involve the public effectively, and the uncertainty and cost of litigation has led individuals and organizations around the country to explore better ways of dealing with conflict. For over a decade, ACCORD has been in the business of designing and applying alternative procedures to resolve large-scale public disputes and environmental controversies. We have adapted to our w o r k lessons learned in international peacemaking, c o m m u n i t y dispute settlement, and interpersonal conflict resolution. Problems we have dealt with range from municipal water supply to air quality standards, land acquisition, forest access, coal leasing, and urban development. All of these controversies are as m u c h social and economic as they are "environmental." Our intervention activities m a y take anywhere from a few days to several years depending on the nature of the conflict and the n u m b e r of parties. We have w o r k e d with all levels of government, private industry, and public-interest groups.Individuals w h o get caught up in conflict fall prey to an apparently universal p h e n o m e n o n : as the conflict progresses, they b e c o m e less capable of using c o m m o n sense. This paper will examine seven principles which, in our experience, are c o m m o n l y violated by well-intentioned managers of c o m p l e x issues. While our illustrations are drawn from our experiences with natural resources, the principles are applicable to other fields of dispute resolution activities. We provide an example of what happens w h e n a principle is ignored and describe at least one alternative procedure.
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