MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program (PDP)

Since 1983 the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program (PDP) has been part of the interuniversity Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. PDP is also affiliated with the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the not-for-profit Consensus Building Institute.

Public disputes arise over the allocation of scarce resources, the setting of policy priorities, as well as government efforts to specify standards of various kinds (such as regulations regarding health, safety, and environmental protection). PDP has been involved in testing, documenting, and assessing the advantages and disadvantages of using mediation and other forms of consensus building to resolve such disputes at the local, state, national, and international levels. In general, we have found that mediation, when used properly, produces fairer outcomes, more efficient results, and more stable political commitments, as well as wiser use of the best scientific and technical information available.

PDP is based at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (PON). PON is an inter-university consortium (Harvard, MIT, and Tufts) devoted to improving the theory and practice of dispute resolution. It was created in the early 1980s to make it easier for scholars from a variety of disciplines to work together and for scholars and practitioners to interact more effectively.

PON has eight component projects under its umbrella. Several deal with international conflict (i.e. war and peace). Some deal with issues in the workplace. One focuses on business negotiations of various kinds. PDP is the project at PON that deals most directly with public policy disputes within countries.

Many of the students and faculty who work with PDP are also based in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT -one of the three departments in the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Within that department, there is a group focused on environmental policy (called the Environmental Policy Group or EPG). EPG is headed by Professor Susskind who is also co-director of PDP. Many EPG graduate students work simultaneously at PDP while completing their graduate studies.

Some of the graduate students working on PDP projects are graduate students at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University. In addition, to focusing on the best ways of resolving public disputes within countries, PDP has also worked for many years on strategies for building consensus within the "global treaty-making system." Fletcher students, under the direction of PDP Co-director, Professor William Moomaw, bring a wealth of experience in international law and diplomatic practice to this work.