Negotiated decisions on baltic fishery resource allocation

Negotiation is important in settings where stakeholders have conflicting interests and a desire to cooperate. In that relation argumentation analysis is a promising approach to support the idea that it should be possible to say more about the certainty of a particular decision than just assessing a degree of its probabilistic certainty. In particular, it should be possible to assess the potential reasons (i.e., arguments) why a decision is made, and to combine and compare arguments in order to understand the balance of interests behind the decision. This paper explores the issue of negotiation based decision making using argumentation frameworks for arguing about knowledge (science based advice) and justification of objectives adopted by stakeholders. Fishing fleet overcapacity, being clearly conducive to over-fishing and economic underperformance, is believed to be an important negotiation context element in striking the balance between divergent short-term interests, environmental on the one hand, and socio-economic on the other, often authorizing catch quantities that are higher than those recommended by the scientists, in order to protect the immediate social and economic interests of those employed in the industry.