2 Bilateral and Multilateral Diplomacy

Bilateral diplomacy — state-to-state relations through embassies: the traditional form, personal, continuous, tailored; its instruments: treaties, summits, joint commissions (Nepal's jointcommissions with India and China as examples), and the resident embassy's daily advocacy. Strengths: flexibility, speed, accountability; weakness: asymmetry of power is felt directly (a small state's bilateral table with a superpower is a lesson in leverage).Multilateral diplomacy — many states at one table: conferences, international organizations (the UN General Assembly's one-state-one-vote equality), and treaty regimes. Its properties: rules and procedures (agendas, resolutions, consensus practices), coalition arithmetic, and the equalizing effect — the small state's stage (Nepal's UNGA voice, its LLDC and LDC group leadership). New traits (multilateralism's "new diplomacy" below): summitry, conference diplomacy with open doors for media and NGOs, and the phenomenon of "megadiplomacy" (climate conferences with tens of thousands of participants). Weaknesses: lowest-common- denominator outcomes, procedural warfare, veto points galore. Nepal's portfolio: SAARC (multilateral regional), BIMSTEC, the UN system, WTO since 2004, and the caucus diplomacy of the Group of 77/Least Developed Countries — Nepal was LDC group chair at the UN through climate and graduation negotiations (the LDC leadership a Nepali speciality).