Options are provided and the next step is to determine and find out an option that will suit both sides best. Selecting an option requires a criterion to decide one option is better than the other or is the best among several options, and now it comes to the fourth principle—introducing an objective criterion.

1.1.3        Introducing an objective criterion

  The first three principles advocate the benefits of considering both parties’ interests and designing a distributive pattern that would satisfy both sides’ demands. However, conflicts and disputes of the parties over interests gaining will not disappear no matter how considerable the two sides try to be and how creative in providing options. When the parties’ interests are directly opposed, one side in a negotiation can prevail just by being stubborn. However, this tends to produce an arbitrary and unjust result. It is preferable to frame discussions around a fear standard that is independent of the parties’ positions or will. This can be an objective standard such as market value, average salary in the industry, precedent, expert opinion, custom or law. By using objective criteria as a guide, neither party has to give in to the other: rather, both parties can defer to a fair and independent solution.

 Once at an international Ocean Law Conference, India and US were arguing about whether ocean mineral exploring companies should pay a preliminary charge when exploring an area in the sea. India, representing developing countries, insisted on a sum of $6,000 down—payment while US opposed firmly the proposal. The two sides haggled over the issue and could not reach an agreement. Later a representative found out an economic model of ocean exploration by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which could calculate all payment proposals and their impacts on economic return of ocean exploration, and which was accepted as an objective criterion of economic analysis on ocean exploration by all sides. The model showed that India’s proposal of preliminary payment did have an impact on exploration, i.e. a company’s normal operation might be interrupted since the company had to pay the charge before making the profit. India thus agreed to reconsider its proposal. The model also told US that preliminary payment of a reasonable sum was possible economically and as a result US gave up its position.

One point is clear that different issues have different objective criteria. For example, criteria of price talking will include factors of cost, market situation, depreciation, price competition and other necessary factors. In other negotiations, experts’ opinions, international conventions and norms and legal documents will all serve as objective criteria.

   In the Sino—US negotiation on China’s accession into WTO, the two parties disputed over China’s developing country status. US took the position that China should be treated as a developed country. To back US stance, American negotiators cited China’s growing exports and large foreign reserve holdings. They argued that in developing countries China’s sophisticated technology in launching and retrieving satellites had no parallel. One American negotiator even compared the situation in China with that in India and some African countries. He said when he opened the door of a family in a poorest area randomly chosen by the Chinese government and asked the people if they had their breakfast, he was told they did, and he went on asking if lunch and supper were guaranteed, the answer was yes. However he had a very different story in some African countries and even in some areas in India. People there had little food for breakfast, not mention lunch and supper. The two countries insisted on their own standards and it was hard to bridge the discrepancy. Here the focus is which criterion to apply to for resolving the dispute. In fact there is a ready criterion provided by the World Bank, which is measured by per capita GNP. According to the World Bank’s standard, countries whose per capita GNP below $785 (1996) are the poorest countries. China’s per capita GNP in 1997 was $750, which is among the poorest countries.

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