An expert-based decision making tool for enhancing the consensus on Caspian Sea legal regime

This paper is focused on finding an optimal strategy for enhancing the consensus on negotiations over the legal status and regime problems of the Caspian Sea, which has caused a lot of abortive strives since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The strategic planning process begins with finding a set of major closed sea that has similar geographical features alike Caspian Sea. Then based on expert ideas and background review, it generates a series of fundamental criteria that have influenced the closed sea delimitation. Through a committee of practical experts with diversified professional backgrounds, these criteria were evaluated and classified into internal strengths and weaknesses of the alternative closed sea, as well as external opportunities and threats to them. The Delphi technique also was used to establish expert consensus on key strategies that are important for delimitating the Caspian Sea. In the next section, the decision makers (DMs) determined the factors weight based on the vast amount of information concerning the closed sea delimitation conditions. Then these factors have been weighted based on the Caspian Sea coastal countries' conditions. Finally, this paper assesses the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) of these criteria, and develops an optimal strategic plan for the Caspian Sea delimitation that can enhance the consensus on Caspian Sea legal regime in future negotiations.