The essence of change in international negotiations is the increased role of negotiations in managing the international system. This has produced a fundamental evolution in the functions, agenda, structure, and intensity of international negotiations. The principal force in this process is the discrepancy between the growth of international relations in social dynamics and the declining effectiveness of traditional unilateral strategies in international system management. Many properties of modern international negotiations have negatively influenced the process and outcome of some major international conferences on specific political situations of the late 1970's and early 1980's. This conclusion is warranted by the growing length of some international negotiations, the decreasing stability of negotiation processes, and the ineffectiveness of the modern international negotiations system. International negotiations can be enhanced by (1) improving relations between states with different socioeconomic and political systems as a basis for negotiating matters of mutual concern and (2) changing from the current confrontational negotiating style to a style of dialog. Twelve notes are provided.