2020-2021 Projects
More projects coming soon!
Negotiation Consultation System Design
As part of an upcoming project to offer HLS Negotiators’ offers services to advise Harvard students and staff on real-life negotiation problems, the Negotiators would like to design a system by which we can advertise, intake, and manage negotiation cases that individuals bring to us. This is a broad mandate, so there is plenty of room for flexibility in designing this system to resolve disputes! Anticipated time commitment is 2 hours per week, though this may decrease as the system is implemented and kinks are worked out. This project is also open for week-by-week involvement to maximize new ideas! Interested? Email negotiators@law.harvard.edu to sign up.
The Schools Project – Teaching negotiations to high schoolers
HLS Negotiators is teaming up with high schools across the country to teach a group of students the basics of interpersonal negotiation. Team members of The Schools Project work with staff members at the selected school to tailor our curriculum to the school’s and students’ needs. During school training, team members co-teach modules of our curriculum, participate in simulated negotiations with the students, and provide students with one-on-one coaching and feedback.
2019-2020 Projects
Global Network Initiative
The Global Network Initiative is a multi-stakeholder organization of internet and telecommunications companies, civil society organizations, academics, and investors who aim to protect and promote free expression and privacy in the ICT sector. GNI works toward this goal through learning, policy, and accountability initiatives. GNI asked the Negotiators to prepare a white paper, suitable for public
release, on models for grievance and remedy with respect to free expression and privacy harms
in the technology sector, which could inform programs to be implemented either by GNI itself, so that users could register complaints about members directly with the organization, or directly by company members.
HNMCP Podcast Project – Episode planning and development
The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program launched a new podcast series on the inspiring efforts of people and organizations working to bridge the partisan divide in the United States. A team of students from HLS Negotiators helped turn ideas for future podcast episodes into a plan and eventually, a reality! In the process, they engaged in research into cutting-edge subjects in fostering dialogue, laid the groundwork for interviews that will air on the podcast, sketched out scripts for the co-hosts that identified key questions and takeaways, and engaged in podcast production.
The Schools Project – Teaching negotiations to local Boston students
HLS Negotiators teamed up with a local high school in the Greater Boston area to teach a group of students the basics of interpersonal negotiation. Team members of The Schools Project worked with staff members at the selected school to tailor our curriculum to the school’s and students’ needs. During school training, team members co-taught modules of our curriculum, participated in simulated negotiations with the students, and provided students with one-on-one coaching and feedback.
2018-2019 Projects
R3SOLUTE – Monitoring and measuring impact of intercultural dialogue
R3SOLUTE is a nonprofit in Berlin that specializes in conflict management with a focus on empowering refugees to manage conflicts in their own communities. In that capacity, they provide trainings and run intercultural dialogue programs (particularly amongst refugees and local communities). However, monitoring this dialogue and understanding its impact can be challenging. Negotiators worked with R3SOLUTE to understand best practices from other settings and academic research in how to best monitor and measure impact in this context.
HNMCP Podcast Project – Episode planning and development
The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program launched a new podcast series on the inspiring efforts of people and organizations working to bridge the partisan divide in the United States. A team of students from HLS Negotiators helped turn ideas for future podcast episodes into a plan and eventually, a reality! In the process, they engaged in research into cutting-edge subjects in fostering dialogue, laid the groundwork for interviews that will air on the podcast, sketched out scripts for the co-hosts that identified key questions and takeaways, and engaged in podcast production.
The Schools Project – Teaching negotiations to local Boston students
HLS Negotiators teamed up with a local high school in the Greater Boston area to teach a group of students the basics of interpersonal negotiation. Team members of The Schools Project worked with staff members at the selected school to tailor our curriculum to the school’s and students’ needs. During school training, team members co-taught modules of our curriculum, participated in simulated negotiations with the students, and provided students with one-on-one coaching and feedback.
Select Projects from Before 2018
Initiative for Peace
During the summer of 2006, Greek and Turkish Cypriot students from Cypress traveled to the Harvard College campus to participate in a series of workshops on peace building. The HLS Negotiators worked with the undergraduate student organizers to design and develop several training programs for the event.
Se San Project
Working in conjunction with students in the Advocates for Human Rights, several Negotiators began a project involving a Vietnamese dam that is causing serious downstream impacts on indigenous populations in Cambodia. The goals of this project included brainstorming ways to get the relevant stakeholders to the negotiation table and how to sequence and structure the negotiation in a way that might end the continued pollution of the river and the deleterious effects on the indigenous population.
The Carter Center
The Carter Center is a not-for-profit founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter to prevent and resolve conflicts and enhance freedom and democracy. The Carter Center developed a project to help undergraduate and graduate students learn substantive aspects of current U.S./China relations and practice ways to dialogue about those issues. To do so, the Carter Center hosted a negotiation competition between U.S. and Chinese students in August 2014. For this competition, the Negotiators created a negotiation simulation that engaged two parties in an issue prominent in current U.S./China relations.
Strong Women, Strong Girls Workshop Design
Several HLSNegotiators worked with the organization Strong Women, Strong Girls to deliver a one-day training to women who serve as mentors for this program. Strong Women, Strong Girls is a non-profit organization that finds mentors for at-risk teenage girls in inner cities. The program developed and taught by Harvard Negotiators helped equip the mentors with negotiation skills to better communicate with the girls they mentor, especially when they are in times of conflict and crisis.\
Nepal Project
Led by an LL.M. in the class of 2006 with connections to officials in Nepal’s democratic movement, a number of students researched white papers to be used by Nepalese government officials in negotiations to persuade the monarchy in Nepal to restore Parliament and a constitutional democracy.
The Freedom Project
The Freedom Project is an independent non‐profit organization dedicated to educational excellence and leadership development in Sunflower County, Mississippi. The State of Mississippi ranks 50th in the U.S. in terms of health, economics, and education, and as part of the State’s Delta region, Sunflower County ranks below the rest of the state in all of these categories. The Freedom Project offers middle and high school students intensive academic enrichment, mentoring, and media production classes. The HLS Negotiators team worked to create 3 hours of a planned 5-hour negotiation and communication curriculum, including an introduction to the Seven Elements of negotiation and a mock negotiation.
Mapleton Ohio School District
HLS Negotiators provided critical negotiation/mediation advice to parties involved in a heated dispute over school funding in the Mapleton School District in Ohio, arising subsequent to the 2002 DeRolph v. State decision of the Ohio Supreme Court. They drafted an editorial on behalf of the school board that was published in the local Maple competition. The team of students working on this project was particularly proud of the real contribution they made to facilitate a problem solving orientation to the conflict. Several students received personal phone calls and letters of thanks from parents, school board members, and local ministers in the community.
Nepal Truth and Reconciliation Project
On July 17, 2007, the Nepalese Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction released a first draft of the Nepal Truth and Reconciliation Act for public comment. The draft drew sharp criticism on a number of key issues related to amnesty, reconciliation among victims and perpetrators, and the mandate, structure, procedures and independence of the TRC. The HLS Negotiators had the unique opportunity to work with Holland and Knight and the Appeal Foundation of the Nobel Peace Laureates to weigh in on this drafting process and help create an Act that incorporates community stakeholder interests and concerns.
ChiResolutions, in conjunction with the Administrative Conference of the United States
HLS Negotiators worked on a client project with ChiResolutions, in conjunction with the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), researching ombudsman programs in the federal government. Ombudsmen, or ombuds, advocate, investigate, and help resolve a wide range of issues that arise in various government organizations. The project focused on Long-Term Care, Family, and Taxpayer ombuds programs. The scope of the research focused on both the service aspects of what ombuds do and the legal and formal mandates for ombuds, including work done by the ABA Ombuds Committee.