Getting the safe minimum standard to work in the real world: A case study in moral pragmatism

There is growing endorsement of local stake-holder conventions to resolve unusual environmental disputes. The conventions are separate decision-making bodies designed to by-pass conventional institutions. The hazards of a stake-holder convention which is overly-detached from conventional decision-making leads to a discourse that never successfully confronts the value controversies which the stake-holder convention is charged to resolve. A case study uncovers obvious and robust strategic manipulations of stake-holder conventions that intrude on value dialogue. An appeal to the safe minimum standard rules of Ciriacy-Wantrup, updated to engage this question, successfully corrects some of the more egregious stumbling blocks to good faith dialogue in local discourse. The proposed constraints on the stake-holder convention can be quite directive, authoritative and bureaucratic, yet the constraints are necessary to preserve good faith conduct within the dialogue.