Multi-player Multi-issue Negotiation with Mediator using CP-nets

This paper presents a simple interactive negotiation approach for conflicts in everyday life with incomplete information. We focus on mediation to obtain an agreement while going through alternating offers over a finite time bargaining game. The mediator searches and proposes a jointly optimal negotiation text for all players participating in the negotiation process based on their conditional preference networks (CP-nets). The players make a decision whether to accept or reject by examining their utility CP-nets. We develop two algorithms for the mediator and the players. If the first negotiation text cannot be accepted by all players, the mediator offers the next negotiation texts by searching for jointly optimal solutions. This negotiation process continues until an agreement is achieved or a deadline is reached. This proposed approach can support multi-issue, multi-party negotiation to achieve an agreement during a finite number of rounds with near optimal outcomes.