Secret international agreements

Covert arrangements among governments
Secret intergovernmental pacts
Conspiracy between governments

Nature

When international agreements are made in secret, negotiators may be inclined to reach an accord with one another at the expense of persons or groups absent.

Incidence

The Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815 redrew boundaries of states without the the knowledge of the European populations affected by such decisions; the Constitutional Convention (1787) was drafted in secret; Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union signed secretly a nonaggression pact in 1939 dividing Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence; Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger conducted secret negotiations with China; and the Nixon administration conducted secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese on the ending of the Viet Nam War. In 1994 evidence emerged that the UK had made a secret agreement with China in the 1980s to limit the development of democratic institutions in Hong Kong, despite the much publicized debates on the matter thereafter in Hong Kong.

Counter-claim

Widely different interests cannot be reconciled if all bargaining has to be done in full light, especially with the proliferation and liberty indicative of today's media. When only a brief overview is presented, understanding of negotiations is limited and this can be more injurious than helpful.