Int Environ Agreements

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-020-09513-4

ORIGINAL PAPER

Beyond delegation size: developing country negotiating

capacity and NGO ‘support’ in international climate
negotiations

Nicholas Chan1

Accepted: 7 October 2020

© Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract
Unequal negotiating capacity has been a longstanding concern for developing countries in
multilateral environmental negotiations, affecting their fair and active participation in shap-
ing outcomes. Questions over capacity have often been measured and answered through
focusing on delegation size. This article argues that this approach is increasingly limited
due to changing practices of non-state actor inclusion within state delegations to the UN
climate change negotiations. More significantly, delegation size also obscures more sub-
tle capacity-building efforts through specialized non-governmental organizations that have
emerged to ‘support’ developing country delegations. Whilst existing research has analysed
the diverse roles that NGOs play in international negotiations, NGOs whose main purpose
is to provide negotiating support have been neglected and under-explored. This article
addresses this neglect by presenting three brief case studies of such NGOs. It derives from
these cases a typology of negotiating support NGOs to illustrate their variance in terms of
the ‘range’ of issues supported and the ‘scale’ of support provided to developing countries,
whilst providing directions for future research. It illustrates the ways in which NGOs also
‘perform’ diplomacy, and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how developing
countries negotiate in climate negotiations.

Keywords Multilateralism · Negotiations; climate change · Developing countries · NGOs ·

Diplomacy

1 Introduction

Multilateral negotiations generally provide the appearance of procedural equality with ‘one
country one vote’ or consensus-based processes of decision-making. In practice, however,
substantial discrepancies exist in terms of the ability to shape and influence the negoti-
ating process. Many states struggle to effectively participate, especially when such par-
ticipation often depends on an understanding of complex legal procedure, past precedent,

* Nicholas Chan
nickchan@hotmail.com
1
School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia

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 N. Chan

or extensive specialized knowledge (Chasek and Rajamani 2003; Roger and Belliethathan
2016). This discrepancy has been crystallized in the concern over ‘negotiating capacity’—
do developing countries have the resources to participate effectively and fairly in interna-
tional negotiations? I examine one response to this concern: the emergence of a distinct
category of ‘negotiation support’ NGOs that seek to provide states with administrative,
technical, and strategic assistance to overcome obstacles to effective participation in mul-
tilateral environmental negotiations. Such negotiation support is intended to ensure that
agreed outcomes do reflect the views of those who would otherwise struggle to participate
effectively—and fairly—in the negotiating process.
I present this response in the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) negotiations, where the existing literature has charted a rich and
diverse record of NGO participation in intergovernmental climate diplomacy. Whilst it has
been long recognized that NGOs can generally contribute to improving state negotiating
capacity (Betsill and Corell 2008), I analyse the special case of NGOs that explicitly per-
form this function of negotiation support, which has received scant attention in the exist-
ing global environmental politics literature (although there is some discussion of related
groups in the trade context, see Jones et al. 2010). This is a numerically small group of
NGOs within the wider complex of non-state actors in the climate regime. But examining
their activity, essentially within the past 10 years of climate negotiations, makes contribu-
tions to at least three areas: to a more nuanced understanding of non-state actors in multi-
lateral negotiating processes (i.e. Fisher and Green 2004); how otherwise small and weak
states are able to exercise influence in multilateral diplomacy (i.e. Groen and Wivel 2011;
Panke 2012), and the involvement of NGOs in ‘performing’ diplomacy (i.e. Seabrooke
2015).
I first provide a brief overview of the problem of negotiating capacity. Secondly, I then
discuss the way in which delegation size has been used as a proxy for understanding nego-
tiating capacity, and the limits of this measure in light of recent shifts in the UNFCCC
negotiating process. Thirdly, I summarize the conventional analysis of how NGOs have
contributed to addressing this problem, and introduce the model of the negotiation support
NGO, especially in ways that distinguish them from other NGOs. Finally, I present three
brief cases: the Legal Response Initiative, Independent Diplomat, and the International
Institute for Environment and Development. This discussion is based upon publicly availa-
ble source material, including donor reports, as well as being informed by direct participant
observation at seven Conferences of Parties (COPs) of the UNFCCC negotiations between
2011 and 2018 as an accredited member of a developing country delegation. I use observed
differences amongst them to inductively propose a typology of negotiation support NGOs
based on their variance in terms of the range of issues supported, and the ‘scale’ of support
provided. I then outline further research questions to achieve a better understanding of the
role that such support NGOs perform in the politics of international climate diplomacy.

2 Negotiating capacity, developing countries, and delegation size

The issue of unequal negotiating capacity between developed and developing countries has
been a longstanding issue in multilateral processes, where ‘capacity’ is understood as the
ability of a country to participate effectively in a given negotiation (Jones et al. 2010).
This ability depends on whether a state has adequate financial, technical, and human
resources with which to participate and pursue their interests in negotiations. An expanding

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Beyond delegation size: developing country negotiating capacity…

multilateral negotiating agenda, understaffed bureaucracies, small delegation sizes, lan-

guage differences, and inconsistency in delegation composition have all meant that
smaller and poorer states participate in negotiations at a disadvantage (Chasek 2001; Cor-
bett and Connell 2015; Gupta 2006; Panke 2012), notwithstanding that the broader small
states literature has also highlighted potential advantages in how small bureaucracies can
be more flexible and focused (Groen and Wivel 2011). The absence of scientific experts
may mean that factual claims made by others are not adequately scrutinized (Chasek and
Rajamani 2003: 248); small delegations mean that parallel or late-night meetings cannot be
adequately covered (Eckersley 2012: 35; Yamin and Depledge 2004: 460); small delega-
tions have to stretch delegates further to understand others’ positions in order to negotiate
effectively (Panke 2012: 316). This resource capacity gap is related to, but not the same as
choices over negotiating strategy and bargaining tactics that aim to shape regime norms
and material benefits, or broader structural asymmetries of material power and status
between developed and developing countries (Panke 2012). Nonetheless, this capacity gap
forms a major part of the ‘disenfranchisement’ of developing countries in multilateral pro-
cesses, unable to participate fairly and subsequently unable to influence decision-making
(Fisher and Green 2004).1 Corbett et al. (2019) term the capacity problem as one of ‘pres-
ence’ and ‘active participation’ in negotiations, without which efforts at entrepreneurship
or coalition-building are impossible. This capacity gap also features in wider discussions of
small state behaviour within other institutions (i.e. Groen and Wivel 2011).
Various initiatives partially mitigate these resource inequalities. These include the
Earth Negotiations Bulletin that helps to overcome informational gaps (Chasek 2001), or
more general training opportunities offered by the United Nations Institute for Training
and Research that aim to ‘build’ delegate capacity. Nonetheless, the negotiating capac-
ity problem remains a frequently articulated one in multilateral negotiations (Jones et al.
2010; Panke 2012). This unequal participation, ‘having sufficient resources to participate
on equal terms’ (Abeysinghe and Huq 2016: 198–199, emphasis added), is normatively
significant for reasons of procedural justice and fairness (Tomlinson 2015: chapter 5). It is
also substantively significant in being thought to negatively affect compliance—whether
in terms of subsequent ratification, or in commitment to effective implementation (Chasek
2001: 175; Gupta 2006; Roberts and Parks 2007: 14–19).
The setting of the UN climate negotiations has also reflected this theme. From the very
beginning of intergovernmental negotiations (and even including the establishment of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Agrawala 1998: 628–632), the issue of fair
participation has remained a constant theme. This continues up until the present day, as
illustrated in recurring criticisms about inadequate resources for the Trust Fund for Par-
ticipation in the UNFCCC Process, which aims to fund travel and subsistence for two del-
egates per developing country (and a third delegate per island state and Least Developed
Country) to enable COP attendance (King 2016). Similarly, conference scheduling is for-
mally limited to six concurrent meetings to avoid small delegations being spread too thinly
(UNFCCC 2010: paragraph 164; see also Yamin and Depledge 2004: 454). Fair participa-
tion in terms of delegation size has been raised as a concern over the legitimacy of out-
comes, where consensus decision-making means that decisions are adopted in the absence
of objections—and if a state is not present in the room, such as in the case of late-night
meetings or the conference running beyond its scheduled close, they cannot object to its

1
Fisher and Green (2004) theorize ‘disenfranchisement’ in the context of both developing countries and
civil society. In this article, I draw only on the developing country aspect of their discussion.

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conclusions (Yamin and Depledge 2004: 460). As a result of this lack of capacity, climate
negotiations have been criticized for being an unequal playing field that fails to meet the
interests of the vulnerable (Abeysinghe and Huq 2016).
The traditional proxy for judging negotiating capacity in the climate negotiations has
been delegation size: the number of delegates a country sends to UNFCCCC sessions
(Andrei et al. 2016: 12–14; Kaya and Schofield 2020; Roberts and Parks 2007: 14–19;
Roger and Belliethathan 2016: 104–105; Schroeder et al. 2012). Assessing delegation size
has been a common object of analysis, partly because it is easily measurable through pub-
licly available participant lists of each UNFCCC session (i.e. UNFCCC 2018). At annual
COPs, media commentators use these to highlight North–South differences (McSweeney
2018). The orthodox assumption remains that variance in delegation size ‘reflects differ-
ent capacities; poor countries cannot afford to send large delegations and their level of
expertise usually remains significantly below that of wealthier countries’ (Schroeder et al.
2012: 835) or that delegation size ‘reflects power and voice at COP negotiations’ (Kaya
and Schofield 2020: 4). This relationship between delegation size and negotiating influence
is also made in other issue areas ranging from marine biodiversity to nuclear non-prolifera-
tion (Blasiak et al. 2016; Onderco 2019; Panke 2012).
This may have once been the case, but I argue that this is no longer true. Delegation size
is of increasingly limited value for understanding negotiating capacity. This is principally
because delegation lists have been inflated to the extent that they no longer represent an
accurate indication of a delegation’s ‘true’ capacity. As a result, a more nuanced analysis
is needed for two broad reasons. Firstly, the UNFCCC process has seen a dramatic expan-
sion in numerical participation over the past decade, especially at annual COP sessions.
The number of accredited NGO observers accredited to the UNFCCC process has stead-
ily increased: at the 2018 COP24 meeting, 5054 representatives from 1032 NGOs were
accredited (UNFCCC 2018). These increases strain the physical capacity limits of ven-
ues, with the result that participation by non-state actors has been regulated since 2010,
and limits placed on the number of attendees that a single non-state actor may accredit to
a given session (Nasiritousi and Linnér 2016: 139–140). One consequence is that NGOs
have increasingly sought to circumvent these limits through securing accreditation as a
Party representative, for which there are no caps. Many countries have been content and
willing to do so (Carter 2018; McGregor 2011: 3), which the participant lists themselves
illustrate. It is not an uncommon practice for countries to accredit delegation members who
have no formal role in representing the government’s position—including youth groups,
business representatives, and academics (i.e. Dimitrov 2016).
Secondly, this expanding demand for accreditation has also been the result of the chang-
ing function of the UN climate conferences, expanding from intergovernmental nego-
tiations to a climate expo-type function. Many participants attend COP sessions for the
purpose of networking and disseminating lessons from climate projects, and have little
engagement with the negotiating process itself (Lovbrand et al. 2017), and therefore do not
contribute to the ‘true’ negotiating capacity of the delegation. At the 2017 COP23 confer-
ence, this function was physically visible through the establishment of a separate ‘Bonn
Zone’ conference space to host national and institutional pavilions and side events, where
5940 participants were registered. The Bonn Zone was separate from the typical observer
registration for formal negotiations (called the ‘Bula Zone’ at COP23), which makes no
distinction between whether an observer is attending formal negotiations or side events,
and accommodated some of the excess demand for accreditation (UNFCCC 2017).
The broad outcomes of these changes in COP attendance have resulted in curious
patterns of participation. The three largest delegations at COP24 (besides the Polish

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Beyond delegation size: developing country negotiating capacity…

hosts) were not major players within the negotiations: Guinea, the Democratic Repub-
lic of Congo, and Cote d’Ivoire (McSweeney 2018), and many G20 countries (to use
one conventional measure of economic weight) sent far smaller delegations. Recent
scholarship on delegation size (Kaya and Schofield 2020) neglects these types of dis-
crepancies. As a result, there is a need to move away from the use of size as a proxy
for negotiation capacity, and to close this knowledge gap by turning to a more detailed
analysis of delegation composition, building on studies that highlight variance in the
participation of different ministries within national delegations (Skovgaard and Gallant
2015).

3 Quality, not quantity, in negotiating capacity: the contribution

of ‘negotiation support’ NGOs

I argue that the previous focus on overall delegation size has obscured other features
of the negotiation process, underway for some while, that make a more substantive
difference to the negotiating capacity of developing countries. One of these features
has been largely unremarked upon in the scholarly literature on the climate negotia-
tions: the emergence of a sub-set of NGOs that exist to support the negotiating efforts
of developing country delegations, labelled here as ‘negotiation support’ NGOs. This
is not a completely new phenomenon: one of the best-known such historical exam-
ples was lawyers from the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Devel-
opment (FIELD) who served as delegates for various island states from the outset of
the negotiations that agreed the UNFCCC (Chayes and Chayes 1995: 260–262; Yamin
and Depledge 2004: 38). FIELD was even cited as an example about the transforma-
tive impacts of NGOs on post-Cold War politics in a Foreign Affairs article (Mathews
1997: 55). The involvement of NGOs has also been recognized more generally as one
strategy for ameliorating problems of negotiating capacity through the provision of
expert research, advice, and information (Chasek and Rajamani 2003; Panke 2012:
318; Raustiala 1997), and identified as a feature of negotiating coalition effectiveness,
for instance, the African Group (Roger and Belliethathan 2016). However, some stud-
ies also suggest that the inclusion of civil society participation in national delegations
may be more attributable to regime type or legitimacy signaling, rather than a way
of closing negotiating capacity gaps through their ‘information provision’ function
(Bohmelt 2013; Bohmelt et al. 2014).
What this brief literature does not capture, however, is the institutional form that
this NGO negotiating support has taken, and the diverse ways in which such support
is now provided and received, which has mostly been a feature of the past decade.
The FIELD example has been frequently cited, and the role of external consultants or
experts generically identified (i.e. Corbett and Connell 2015), but the broader type of
the ‘negotiation support’ NGO discussed below has not. What this support ultimately
highlights is a more targeted way of addressing the delegation resource problem
beyond the blunt metric of delegation size. Who is within a delegation is arguably far
more important to understand if the information provision problem is taken seriously.
The next part of this section distinguishes this support from the broader contributions
of NGO participation in climate diplomacy, before providing a conceptual elaboration
of the category of negotiation support NGOs.

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3.1 NGOs in the climate change negotiations

A considerable literature has emerged surrounding the participation and contribution of

NGOs in the international climate negotiating process as one part of the broader literature
of non-state actors in transnational climate governance (for instance, Dryzek 2017). NGOs
perform functional roles as experts, mediators, and brokers within the negotiating process,
as well as social ones of conferring legitimacy on certain outcomes (Albin 1999; Nasiri-
tousi et al. 2016; Yamin 2001). In particular, NGOs have been recognized as advocacy and
interest groups, seeking to influence the overall outcomes of negotiations (Betzold 2013).
Michele Betsill and Elisabeth Corell’s notion of the ‘NGO diplomat’ attempts to capture
this, analysing the impact of NGOs acting in quasi-diplomatic ways, as ‘insider’ activists
within climate (and other environmental) negotiations, and ‘on behalf of a clearly identi-
fied constituency’ (Betsill and Corell 2008; Lovbrand et al. 2017: 593).
The general approach, as befits the name non-governmental, distinguishes the NGO
from the state actors that they are trying to influence. Multilateral diplomacy recog-
nizes this through the designation of NGOs as ‘observers’ to an inter-governmental pro-
cess. Various studies have sought to explore the conditions and processes through which
this observer participation has taken place, as well as their outcomes, and how it can be
made more ‘effective’ (Nasiritousi and Linnér 2016; Lovbrand et al. 2017). Their influ-
ence depends on features such as whether meetings are opened to non-state actors or closed
only to government participants (Nasiritousi and Linnér 2016), or mitigating concerns
about intruding on state sovereignty. In turn, questions have also been raised about issues
of accountability and representation associated with these non-state actors themselves
(Kuyper and Backstrand 2016). This traditional distinction between the non-state actor and
the state, which generally depicts the state negotiating position as the object of influence
for the NGO, is blurred, however, through the emergence of the negotiation support NGO.

3.2 Negotiation support NGOs

Instead, the NGOs I focus on are groups that have the explicit purpose of improving a
state’s negotiating capacity, rather than trying to align the state’s negotiating positions
closer to those of the NGO. These non-state actors are theoretically and empirically inter-
esting objects of analysis: they present a different type of contribution to environmental
negotiations than the existing literature recognizes, and as will be shown, make potentially
significant impacts on the abilities of developing countries to participate in negotiations,
and thereby their influence on negotiation outcomes. As a result, they considerably nuance
the conventional understanding of NGOs, perhaps even contravening one commonly
expressed defining feature of NGOs, that they ‘expresses views that are independent of any
national government’ (Betsill and Corell 2008: 4).
As noted above, NGOs are recognized as contributing to the information provision
capacity problem, through providing advice on the content of national negotiating posi-
tions, serving as sources of information for ill-prepared delegates, or overcoming infor-
mation gaps on the strategy and process of negotiations. This, however, is normally a
partial purpose of these NGOs, and a side-product of their advocacy goals (Chasek 2001;
Chasek and Rajamani 2003; Raustiala 1997; Yamin 2001: 157). For instance, human rights
NGOs, by being included in national delegations, were able to speak on behalf of that
state to advocate for recognizing human rights in the Paris Agreement (Schapper 2018:

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Beyond delegation size: developing country negotiating capacity…

47–48)—an example of the notion that NGOs form ‘alliances’ with states to advance spe-
cific substantive agendas (Betsill and Corell 2008).
For the negotiation support NGO, by contrast, this information provision purpose is a
primary purpose rather than a side-product. At a certain extreme, as will be shown, these
NGOs become deeply integrated in processes of how national negotiating positions are
even established, and help a state to ‘perform’ its diplomatic activities in a ‘professional’
manner (Seabrooke 2015). These NGOs are nonetheless institutionally separate from a
state’s own civil servants and bureaucracy. They function with a distinct operational struc-
ture, including legal independence, with many of these groups registered as non-profits and
with charitable purposes, unlike PR firms hired by Saudi Arabia, India, or Brazil (Volcovici
2015). For example, the three cases later discussed are all registered with the Charity Com-
mission, the government regulator for England-based charities. They also function with a
distinct line of financial accountability, with many of these groups at least partially, if not
sometimes entirely, reliant on third-party funding from sources other than the state that
they are supporting or their own internal resources, as will be shown, such as OECD donor
countries, or philanthropic foundations (on philanthropies in climate politics, see Morena
2016). Indeed, they reverse the view that ‘adding civil society actors to a delegation typi-
cally means at least paying for their expenses’ (Bohmelt 2013: 76). In many cases, the
negotiation support NGO itself provides a mechanism for funding government delegates to
attend sessions, as in the case of the IIED and LDC Group discussed below (Abeysinghe
2011; Morena 2016: 114; Müller 2014: 3–4), and as Table 2 also notes more broadly.
As a result, support NGOs are functional responses to the negotiating capacity problem.
Like conventionally defined NGOs, the negotiation support NGO’s key contribution is as
a source of specialized knowledge to address the information-provision gap in negotiat-
ing capacity, especially in the highly procedural and legalistic environment of multilateral
negotiations (Betsill and Corell 2008: 23). Like broader trends in the evolution of the pur-
poses and functions of NGOs (Ebrahim 2005), they also resemble contractors and ‘delivery
mechanisms’ for donor aid—subject to contract bidding, business cases, and independent
evaluation. Unlike conventionally defined NGOs, however, their distinct purpose—without
an advocacy function, or a claim to represent some other non-state constituency—may mit-
igate some of the concerns over potential sovereignty costs from confidentiality or undue
influence that conventional advocacy-oriented NGOs might bring to government delega-
tions (Bohmelt et al. 2014: 21).
Analysing this group of NGOs also recasts some of the questions that have traditionally
been posed of NGOs in the climate negotiations. ‘Influence’, a concept on which much ana-
lytical effort has been spent on discussing (Betsill and Corell 2008), has a different mean-
ing for this set of NGOs because it is less distinguishable from the state position itself.
Similarly, questions about improving the legitimacy of government positions and decisions
to domestic publics, which may broadly explain NGO inclusion on government delegations
(Bohmelt et al. 2014), are less relevant because these NGOs are not making representative
claims to domestic publics.

4 Three illustrations towards a typology of negotiation support

I now provide a sketch of three negotiation support groups, with the goal of descriptively
illustrating the ways in which they can diverge in terms of their purpose, which provides a
basis for proposing a typology of support NGOs in the last part of this section.

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4.1 Ad hoc, issue‑specific support: legal response International

Legal Response International (LRI)2 illustrates a light-touch, minimal form of negotiation

support, as a type of support that is ad hoc and not based on a permanent (or ongoing) rela-
tionship with a specific state or coalition of states. The LRI addresses a particular capacity
gap: the lack of legal training of many developing country delegates, or the absence of a
specialized international lawyer participating on a delegation, which can adversely impact
the delegation’s ability to fully grasp the legal significance of the subjects under negotia-
tion (Chasek 2001; King 2014). LRI is a group of lawyers specializing in international
environmental law and multilateral processes, and provide a service for negotiators from
developing countries and civil society observers (many of whom are not legally trained)
to consult on particular legal questions, especially in regards to the English-language draft
negotiating text (Bird 2017). Questions are posed to on-site LRI team members, who for-
ward these to their network of over 160 lawyers acting on a pro bono basis, and who will
then prepare a response to answer the question within hours (Bird 2017; direct personal
observation 2013). States who utilize the LRI service have no obligation to act on the
advice provided, and no fee is charged for the LRI services (Bird 2017). As both a form of
transparency, as well as serving a capacity-building objective, the advice provided through
LRI is subsequently publicly available through an online database, after the requesting par-
ties are anonymized.3.

4.2 Ongoing, single‑country, full‑service support: Independent diplomat (ID)

In contrast to the LRI, an example of what might be called ‘full-service’ negotiating sup-
port is the Independent Diplomat ‘diplomatic advisory group’, as it calls itself, which
assists the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Independent Diplomat is a non-profit
group headquartered in New York City that has provided diplomatic consulting services
to a range of ‘client’ governments across ‘three pillars of modern diplomacy’: political
advice on diplomatic strategy, legal advice, and public diplomacy (Independent Diplomat
2014: 26–29). Founded in 2004 by former UK diplomat Carne Ross, its work has included
campaigns for diplomatic recognition (as in the cases of the Western Sahara, Kosovo, and
Somaliland), diplomatic support to the opposition Syrian National Coalition in negotia-
tions to end the Syrian civil war, and to Tamil groups demanding war crimes inquiries dur-
ing the Sri Lankan civil war4 (see also Seabrooke 2015).
In the climate context, ID has supported the Marshall Islands since 2009, and been
closely associated with the entrepreneurial role that the RMI has taken in the UNF-
CCC process. Whilst other atoll island states also face similar degrees of vulnerabil-
ity to climate impacts, the RMI has become an influential voice within the UNFCCC
negotiations in being able to link its moral claims surrounding vulnerability with ade-
quate negotiating capacity to achieve desired outcomes. Its late Foreign Minister Tony
de Brum observed that the RMI had not sent a delegation at all to UNFCCC negotia-
tions just 2 years prior to the beginning of ID support, but that with this support, ‘ID
has worked to put us at the forefront of the fight against climate change. We are now at

2
www.legal​respo​nse.org.
3
https​://legal​respo​nse.org/legal​-assis​tance​/
4
www.indep​enden​tdipl​omat.org.

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Beyond delegation size: developing country negotiating capacity…

the table with the big emitters…’, a reference to the RMI being invited to small-group
informal consultations, inside and outside the UNFCCC process such as the Petersberg
Climate Dialogue (Darby 2015; Independent Diplomat 2014: 11).
ID’s mandate for its ‘services’ has been ‘to provide advice, practical assistance and
capacity-building opportunities to the RMI in relation to diplomatic strategy, the con-
duct of its foreign relations, and public and media outreach’ (US Department of Jus-
tice 2016: 7). But the most visible form of this support has included ID staff serving
amongst the Marshall Islands’ representatives at UNFCCC negotiations, being empow-
ered to intervene and engage in textual negotiations on behalf of the RMI (see also
Carter 2018: 159–160; 240–241). The RMI’s diplomatic strategy in the Paris Agree-
ment negotiations has been recognized especially for convening the ‘High Ambition
Coalition’ across developed and developing countries, a behind-the-scenes process
widely credited with mobilizing political momentum to adopt the Paris Agreement
with a reference to its aspirational below − 1.5 °C target (Independent Diplomat 2020;
King 2015). De Brum was the political leader of the Coalition, where ‘new members
had to approach de Brum in person’ at Paris (King 2015). But ID’s role in supporting
the RMI to defend its objectives in the final negotiations is especially notable, such as
one anecdote from ID’s main advisor that illustrates the importance of navigating the
nuances of the negotiating process:
We sent messages out to all the progressive countries and got ministers out of
offices, and in some cases out of bed, in order to come into the room and make
their presences felt and deliver strong messages (Goodell 2016).
The group structure of UNFCCC negotiations (Yamin and Depledge 2004), however,
has meant that whilst the Marshall Islands has become an influential, high profile voice
on its own terms, advancing its objectives also meant working through existing nego-
tiating coalitions. Over the past decade, ID staff serving on the RMI delegation have
also frequently served as a thematic coordinator for AOSIS on mitigation issues—a
role which has to balance perspectives from other members to achieve group consen-
sus, but providing the RMI with a leadership role to speak on behalf of the group
as a whole (personal direct observation). Predating the High Ambition Coalition, but
also illustrating the continuous political strategy undertaken by the RMI, ID’s work
also included ‘bolstering the effectiveness of the Cartagena Dialogue [an informal
dialogue amongst developed and developing countries] and carryover of progressive
Dialogue messaging into the UNFCCC negotiations’ (CDKN 2013). This work was
also reflected in the RMI’s entrepreneurship at the International Maritime Organiza-
tion (IMO), through supporting de Brum to build regional support within the Pacific
for the IMO to adopt a more demanding climate strategy. (Corbett et al. 2020; Darby
2015). It also extended to domestic climate policy, which served to bolster interna-
tional credibility for demanding greater international climate ambition (Independent
Diplomat 2020).
In short, ID represents a full-service model of negotiation support, where the NGO
performs negotiation services at the technical level for the state, and advises its politi-
cal leaders on their overall strategy. As Seabrooke describes in discussing ID’s non-
climate work, in performing these diplomatic practices that might normally be under-
taken by domestic bureaucracies, they symbolize the ‘outsourcing’ of diplomacy to
support NGOs that provide negotiation capacity otherwise absent (Seabrooke 2015).

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4.3 Coalition‑level administrative and analytical support: the International

Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Another form of negotiation support is NGOs that support a negotiating coalition, and
principally its chairperson, rather than individual member states. This draws from the logic
that negotiations are principally structured amongst coalitions, rather than individual states
(Yamin and Depledge 2004: 34), and that coalitions themselves are tools to address gaps in
negotiating capacity. This kind of support NGO provides ‘secretariat’-type support, often
in administrative terms for meeting scheduling and record-keeping, but also extend to legal
analysis and political support, although without mandates to take the floor and speak on
behalf of the group. Some of the key developing country negotiating groups operate with
such support services—including the AOSIS, Least Developed Country group, and Afri-
can Group of Negotiators—such that even though the group chairperson rotates every 2–3
years, this underlying support structure often remains, assisting with institutional memory
(Carter 2018).
In the case of the Least Developed Country group, whose membership consists of the
48 countries defined by the UN as Least Developed Countries, this support has been pro-
vided through the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) since
2009 (Abeysinghe 2011). IIED is a London-based research organization focused on sus-
tainable development issues,5 where support to the LDC Group has been one part of their
climate change programming. The negotiating capacity problem faced by LDCs has been
described by two IIED staff as follows: ‘many international resolutions on climate change
are decided and implemented without adequate participation from LDCs. This is largely
the result of existing disparities and gaps in the capacities of LDCs to engage in and influ-
ence the outcomes of intergovernmental climate change negotiations’ (Abeysinghe and
Huq 2016: 188–189).
Whilst some of the functions that IIED performs benefit all countries of the group—
such as the preparation of briefing papers on legal or scientific issues, or organizing pre-
COP workshops to train and prepare negotiators, its work is also focused on the rotating
LDC group chair (Craft 2016; Jefford and Hamza-Goodacre 2013: 3, Abeysinghe 2011).
An IIED staff member serves as legal advisor to the chair (Burley 2016); media and com-
munications support aims to amplify the media profile and voice of the chair; and support
is also provided to the chair to participate in informal meetings outside of the UNFCCC
negotiations such as the Petersberg Dialogue (Monzani 2018).
An evaluation of IIED support from 2011 to 2015 found that prior to IIED involvement,
LDC ‘engagement was weaker than that of other blocs, mostly due to a lack of capacity
and resource’, but that subsequently, there was ‘greater and more active engagement and a
stronger profile for the group, its chair and other negotiators endorsing official LDC posi-
tions’ (Monzani 2018: 5). In this way, the IIED model, to target support at the group chair,
suggests a further way in which NGO support can be organized to counter the problem of
negotiating capacity.

4.4 Towards a typology of negotiation support and future research

These brief illustrations of three support NGOs provide the basis to propose a more struc-
tured typology to distinguish how these NGOs can vary. As Table 1 illustrates, this support

5
www.iied.org.

13
Beyond delegation size: developing country negotiating capacity…

Table 1  A proposed typology of negotiation support NGOs

Range of issues supported Scale of support
Ad hoc Single country Group of
countries
(coalition)

Full service Independent diplomat

Secretariat IIED
Issue-specific Legal response
initiative

can vary along two key dimensions: the scale of support provided, ranging from ad hoc
support to ‘standing’ assistance; and the range of issue areas for which such support is
provided.
The ‘scale of support’ refers to the question of ‘to whom is support being provided’. At
one of the scale, the support NGO acts to address specific requests on a temporary basis
without a commitment to any particular country—illustrated by LRI. In the middle of the
spectrum, the support NGO acts to support one specific country, on an ongoing basis—
illustrated by Independent Diplomat. At the other end of the spectrum, this support is pro-
vided to a group of countries (i.e. a negotiating coalition) on an ongoing basis—illustrated
by IIED.
The ‘issue areas’ supported refers to the range of issues on which support is provided. At
one end of the spectrum, the support NGO provides advice restricted to specific thematic
issues, reflecting the support NGO’s specialized expertise—such as on legal questions as
in the case of LRI, or potentially on other issues, such as market mechanisms, forestry, or
climate finance. In the middle of the spectrum, this expands to more general administrative
and secretariat-type support, ‘behind the scenes’ work that includes assistance with record-
keeping or travel arrangements, media and communications work, as well as research and
providing advice on negotiating options and strategies, such as IIED’s support to the LDC
group. At the other end of the spectrum, this is ‘full service’ support that includes the
authority to intervene on behalf of a given country as a fully empowered representative
of that delegation to advance certain negotiating positions, as in the case of Independent
Diplomat and the RMI. Having set out this typology, nonetheless, there may be some logi-
cal exceptions: it would be exceedingly unlikely for ‘secretariat’ or ‘full-service’ support to
be delivered on an ad hoc basis, given the closer relationship that a state and support NGO
likely need to build over time in order for this scale of support to be provided effectively.
Exploring more cases would provide insight into further research questions, and fur-
ther cases may be identified through looking at funding sources (Mylvaganam et al. 2013).
These three cases discussed have been at least partially funded through the ‘negotiation
support’ programming of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN)
consortium managed by global accounting firm PwC, which between 2011 and 2017 was
primarily funded by the UK Department for International Development, and to a lesser

13
 N. Chan

Table 2  CDKN Advocacy Fund indicators and progress. Source: UK Department for International Devel-
opment 2017: 23
Indicator Target Outcome (as of
(2010– September 2017)
2017)

Number of individuals trained 1010 1208

Number of cases where legal, technical, and climate finance advice has been 2100 2577
provided
Number of ‘lessons learned’ papers 37 38
Number of negotiators supported to attend international climate change 521 537
meetings
Number of formal submissions—made to international climate change 345 349
negotiation processes (e.g. UNFCCC)—that have been written as a result
of CDKN support, or to which CDKN has contributed

degree from the Netherlands’ Directorate-General for International Cooperation.6 Other

NGOs funded through CDKN may provide other cases to explore, as well as those funded
by other donors, the most notable being the German Federal Ministry for the Environ-
ment’s International Climate Initiative,7 or the ClimateWorks Foundation, both of which
also began their programming around or after 2009. The limited range of donors none-
theless means that support NGOs operating in this space may also receive contributions
from multiple donors for different projects that may even run concurrently. Similarly, some
NGOs even serve multiple ‘client’ countries, as in the case of Climate Analytics through its
support to both AOSIS and the LDCs (Climate Analytics n.d.).
Questions over funding also raise questions over issues of accountability. Rather than
the ‘representativeness to a constituency’ question often asked of conventional NGOs
(Kuyper and Backstrand 2016), a ‘representativeness to the government’ question becomes
more pressing. As principal-agent theory suggests (Nielson and Tierney 2003), whilst prin-
cipals delegate tasks to agents to perform, some degree of slippage between the goals of
the principals and the actions of the agent may emerge, as a result of information asym-
metries between the principal and agent. Negotiation support is often seen a ‘human
resources’ problem (Abeysinghe and Huq 2016: 188), but issues of power and inequality
are also endemic to developing political positions within multilateral negotiations, as also
highlighted in the case of ‘technical assistance’ to developing countries in trade negotia-
tions (Jones et al. 2010). The issue of ‘multiple principals’ may also emerge, given the
funding relationships present—between the countries that the NGO is supporting (as one
principal), and the donor country or philanthropic foundation that funds support activities
(as the other principal(s)). This can be especially sensitive given that it is the negotiating
position of a country that is at stake, giving rise to the charge of potential conflicts of inter-
est, where many negotiation support NGOs are based in developed countries (Sethi 2018).
A second question would be over the ways in which negotiating capacity is improved,
especially over the durability of negotiation support. Negotiation support may improve

6
All three groups are amongst those funded through a subsequent 2019–22 £6 m program by the UK
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, ‘Capacity-Building for International Negotiation
(CaBIN)’. https​://devtr​acker​.dfid.gov.uk/proje​cts/GB-COH-03580​586-50006​17285​.
7
https​://www.inter​natio​nal-clima​te-initi​ative​.com/en/proje​cts/.

13
Beyond delegation size: developing country negotiating capacity…

negotiating effectiveness in the short-term through the application of diplomatic and legal
skills that cover immediate resource gaps. The reliance on third-party donor funding, how-
ever, puts time limits on such support, meaning that negotiating capacity itself may not
change over the long-term. In other words, negotiation support ‘may substitute for capacity
in developing country delegations’ (Chasek and Rajamani 2003: 257), or capacity may be
‘displaced’, situations where country representatives have fewer responsibilities, which are
instead reassigned to support groups (Jariabka 2016). ‘Capacity diversion’ may also result,
with support groups taking steps to redirect delegation resources to issues that are at odds
with or unprioritized by ministers and political direction (Jariabka 2016).
Some donors appear to recognize these issues, and the use of standalone delivery mech-
anisms is supposed to provide independence from donor demands and ensure demand-led
support. For instance, the CDKN consortium, in its own monitoring and evaluation frame-
work, observes that ‘It is also politically sensitive for a donor programme…to claim credit
for the negotiating success of another country or group’ (Hamza-Goodacre et al. 2013:
3). Instead, CDKN chose a range of quantitative process-oriented indicators to measure
progress and impact, as Table 2 lists (Hamza-Goodacre et al. 2013: 6, UK Department for
International Development 2017: 23). Nonetheless, one longstanding advisor involved in
negotiation capacity-building has observed, ‘Advice…must be more than just a ‘neutral’
listing of options. For it to be of any real value, advice has to evaluate such options from
the beneficiary’s point of view’ (Müller 2014: 2).
Finally, choices over negotiation support are also relevant, especially given the profes-
sionalization of such services in consultant-like ways (Seabrooke 2015). Why and when do
developing countries seek to engage such support, and how do donors limit who they offer
support to, are both political choices. Given the diversity of possible institutional options
that the above typology suggests, how do both recipient and donor states select from this
diversity, including the choice to not to engage such support. This may be particularly rel-
evant given the perception, including in self-reporting by groups and donors, that these
interventions are generally effective ones (i.e. Jeffords and Hamze-Goodacre 2013; Mon-
zani 2018).

5 Conclusion

In this article, I have returned to the question of how the problem of negotiating capacity
faced by developing countries in achieving fair participation has been addressed in the cli-
mate change negotiations. In response, I have highlighted the problematic metric of delega-
tion size often used to assess negotiating capacity, amid changing features of the UNFCCC
negotiating process. I contribute to this scholarly debate by illustrating how specialized
negotiation support NGOs aim to strengthen the negotiating capacity of developing coun-
tries. I have gone beyond the general, diffuse recognition that non-state actors can augment
state negotiating capacity and been included on state delegations (Bohmelt 2013; Bohm-
elt et al. 2014) by proposing a typology of their institutional form and purpose: to liter-
ally enhance states’ abilities to undertake treaty negotiations, derived from the three cases
sketched out here.
These features highlight a more nuanced way of understanding NGO participation in cli-
mate diplomacy, and the need to properly analyse this sub-category of negotiation support
groups, amongst other sub-categories and purposes of NGOs. They point to underappreci-
ated mechanisms in which small states have been able to be present and wield influence

13
 N. Chan

in complex multilateral negotiations, complementing other strategies (Corbett et al. 2019;

Panke 2012). They also form an important part of understanding the politics and dynamics
of the climate change negotiations themselves. Finally, they also highlight the degree to
which diplomatic practices, more than ever before, are being actively undertaken by non-
state actors (Seabrooke 2015), even while these take place within a thoroughly state-centric
context of intergovernmental diplomacy.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to Naghmeh Nasiritousi for comments on an early draft of this article,
and for comments received at the 2018 World Congress of Political Science conference. Participation at this
conference was supported by the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia.

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest The author has served in a pro bono, ad hoc capacity as an advisory member of the
UNFCCC delegations of Vanuatu (2011–2014) and Palau (2014–2015, 2017–2018). The author has used the
services of Legal Response Initiative on one occasion in 2013.

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