Action Forcing Mechanisms/Deadlines/Compliance Guarantees

Deadlines and compliance guarantees are two ways to assure that agreements made in negotiation or mediation will be carried out. If an agreement is open-ended; for example, if it specifies that one party will pay the other a certain amount of money but does not say when, then the person who owes the money can delay paying indefinitely. If there are no complacence guarantees--if nothing happens if they do not pay then they are likely not to pay even if there is a deadline. Thus, to be effective, all agreements should specify who is to do what when, and what will happen if they do not.

If possible, it helps to have mediators who are in a position to enforce agreements. If the mediator is a powerful party, such as the UN or the United States, the disputants are likely to be more reluctant to violate the agreement when the agreement states that sanctions will be used to force compliance. Another approach is to write the agreement so that it is self-enforcing. Each party will be required to fulfill part of its obligation before the other party fulfills theirs.

Deadlines can also be helpful during negotiations, or to get negotiations going in the first place. In labor-management negotiations in the U.S., discussions usually don't even start, or at least don't get serious, until a contract is about to expire and a strike deadline looms. During mediation it is also useful to have deadlines. If a mediator sets a deadline by which time an agreement must be reached, the parties may work harder than if there is no time limit to the process.