SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 1

Southwest Florida Model United Nations – 2013 Topic Guide Political and Security (1)

Resource Security and the Maintenance of the International Peace and Order

Debates about resource security have seemingly shifted in the past several years because of the energy

boom in the United States, tied to increases in natural gas production (through a technique known as

hydraulic fracturing or “fraking”) and to the exploitation of tar sands oil deposits in Northern Canada.

Now it appears that a major strategic vulnerability of the United States – dependence on imported fossil

fuels - is dissipating. The Wall Street Journal recently published an editorial celebrating this trend,

entitled “Saudi America,” proposing that the United States will become the world’s leading energy

producer, if we let it.1 But energy geopolitics have not fundamentally changed. The 2012 energy report

produced by the International Energy Agency projects that increases in US energy production will be

more than offset by declining levels of energy production in Saudi Arabia and Russia.2 The fundamental

problem of energy security remains the growth in the demand for energy will outpace the growth in the

supply on energy, leading to supply crunches and perhaps geopolitical competition for access to energy

resources. An important factor in the future of energy security is the capacity of Iraq to boost energy

production in order to compensate for Saudi and the Russian shortfalls. But this depends on the

establishment of political stability in Iraq, which has been, of course, elusive since the 2003 US invasion

of Iraq that deposed the dictatorship of Sadaam Hussein and broke the power of the Baath party. US

energy security policy has historically emphasized the creation of non-exclusive zones of influence in

which transnational consortiums of energy corporations could extract and sell fossil fuel based energy to

the global market.3 This has been a policy orientation that has kept geopolitical competition for limited

energy resources at bay, but as energy supplies tighten, particularly outside of the United States, one is

left to contemplate whether access to fossil fuel based energy resources will become a basis of

interstate conflict. There are several different resource conflict flashpoints to consider: the Caspian

Basin, the South China Sea, the melting Arctic Ocean, Sub-Saharan Africa and energy rich portions of

1 Wall Street Journal, “Saudi America,” November 12, 2012.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323894704578114591174453074.html 2 Michael Klare, “World Energy Report, 2012,” Tom Dispatch, November 27, 2012.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175621/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_a_thermonuclear_energy_bomb_in_christmas_wrappings 3 See Doug Stokes and Sam Raphael, Global Energy Security and American Hegemony, 2010 (Baltimore: John

Hopkins University Press).

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 2

Latin America.4 Conflict can assume the form of security competition between the great powers. We

are beginning to see this already in the form of the US pivot to Asia in response to increasing Chinese

military capabilities. Security competition between the great powers is likely to diminish their

willingness and capacity to cooperation in other issue areas, such as reducing CO2 emissions through a

new, post-Kyoto climate change agreement. One alternative to this scenario would be a collaborative

process of energy descent from ever growing levels of fossil fuel consumption, which would imply some

way of allocating scarce resources other than a zero sum logic of international conflict.5 Of course, this

process could be helped by more rapidly developing renewable energy resources. It will take several

decades before non-fossil fuel based energy can feasibly replace fossil fuels. This will be a dangerous

period. At a very general level, this topic is focused on how to negotiate the transition to a post fossil

fuel based world. For this committee, the key question is how can delegates negotiate the basis of this

transition. Is US hegemony oriented toward the maintenance of the open world economy an adequate

basis of energy security? Is security cooperation rather than security competition possible in the midst

contracting oil supplies? Might this security cooperation encompass collaboration in the development

of renewable energy supplies?

Political and Security (2)

Counterinsurgency and the Stabilization of Order: How can Counterinsurgency Policies

Contribute to the Resolution of Conflicts?

This topic has two sources. First, the US uses counter-insurgency policy to help prop up friendly states

that are facing challenges from below in the form of ethnic conflicts, populist movements, armed

insurrections and international criminal networks.6 The issue here is that that states are attempting to

key the lid on social conflicts through counterinsurgency policies rather than by attempting to resolve

these conflicts. Are there processes of conflict resolution that are foreclosed by counterinsurgency

policies? How can counterinsurgency policies be redesigned so that they resolve conflicts rather than

simply maintain or reinforce existing patterns of domination? The idea of counter-insurgency is to

4 Michael Klare, “Energy Wars: Three Top Hotspots of Potential Conflict in the Geo-Energy Era,” Tom Dispatch,

January 10, 2102. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175487/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_energy_wars_2012 5 For a discussion of energy descent, see the website Future Scenarios: Mapping the Cultural Implications of Peak

Oil and Climate Change at http://www.futurescenarios.org/content/view/20/57/ 6 For a review of counterinsurgency policy in US foreign policy, see Steve Metz, “Counterinsurgency Policy and

World Strategy,” January 24, 2012, World Policy Review, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/11248/counterinsurgency-and-american-strategy-past-and-future

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 3

strengthen the capacities of friendly governments through the provision of military aid and training, a

process that frequently focused on establishing closer linkages between the US military and the military

establishments of beleaguered states. Not all of this is quite this bilateral, however. There are also

transnational policy networks through which counterinsurgency aid and training is dispensed.7 One

crucial trend associated with counterinsurgency policies is that they are increasingly associated with the

social, economic and political conflicts that are stemming from climate change.8 As climate change

accelerates, we can expect social conflicts across the global south (where climate change is most rapidly

taking effect) to intensify. One particular example of climate change driven conflict is the Naxalite

insurgency in India, which is emerging the wake of disrupted monsoon patterns. Indian political

authorities recognize that the Naxalites control roughly 25% of India’s national territory. They have

responded with counterinsurgency strategies, but no end of the conflict is currently in sight.9 Other

instances of counter-insurgency are related to narco-trafficking in countries such as Mexico and

Colombia. The US initiated Plan Colombia has delivered over $7 billion in mostly military aid to

Colombia, strengthening its military and weakening the main armed opposition group, the FARC. Now

the Colombian state is turning to peace talks with the FARC. Plan Mexico has similarly sought to

strengthen the Mexican state against armed drug cartels. In all of these examples, counterinsurgency

has been associated with human rights abuses of the military organizations that have received aid

through counterinsurgency policies. In the Colombian case, one should be particularly attentive to the

ways in which counterinsurgency policies have enabled transnational corporations to more efficiently

extract resources from Colombia.10 This points to a connection between counterinsurgency and

development, but development in whose interests? There are always going to be conflicts of interests –

this is the very stuff of politics. The key, at least with respect to counterinsurgency, is the

transformation of armed conflicts into civil conflicts. The resolution of major conflicts, however, does

require some degree of social transformation. And this is a key problem with counter-insurgency: it

typically seeks the suppression of conflict without social transformation. How might this be otherwise?

7 Paul Rogers, “America’s New Wars and Militarized Diplomacy, Open Democracy, May 31, 2012. .

http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/americas-new-wars-and-militarised-diplomacy 8 For discussion, see Michael Parenti, Tropic of Chaos (Nation Books, 2011).

9 For background, see Teun Von Dongen, “The Naxalite Insurgency: No End in Sight,” Aspenia Online, March 23,

2012. http://www.aspeninstitute.it/aspenia-online/article/naxalite-insurgency-india-no-end-sight 10

For discussion of armed conflict in Colombia, see Gary Leech, “The Shifting Contours of Colombia’s Armed Conflict,” February 10, 2012, North American Congress on Latin America, http://www.nacla.org/news/2012/2/10/shifting-contours-colombia%E2%80%99s-armed-conflict

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 4

Thomas Barnet’s article, “The Pentagon’s New Map of the World,” (2003) may help to put this topic into

sharper focus.11 Barnet argues that economic globalization is the basis of the contemporary world

order. There are basically two regions of the world – a functioning core, which comprises the heartland

of globalization and the non-integrating gap consisting of countries that are incapable or unwilling to

integrate themselves into the globalized world order. Many of these countries are failed states. They

are sources of disorder and danger to the functioning core through such vectors as terrorism, drug

trafficking, and infectious disease. War is unlikely between members of the functioning core, but global

security depends on some modicum of order being established in the non-integrating gap and this can

occur, in many cases, only by means of intervention. Frequently this intervention assumes the form of

counterinsurgency policies that are oriented toward nation building. As nation building, counter-

insurgency aims not only at the resolution of conflicts, but also development. Underlying this approach

to intervention is the supposition that the intervening powers know what it is best for the target of

intervention. Can counterinsurgency policies conducted under these auspices be effective in the

resolution of conflict?

General Assembly Plenary

Resource Scarcity and the Maintenance of the International Peace and Order: the Case of Water

It is worth thinking about what it means to frame water as a security issue. According to

International Relations securitization theory, to invoke security is to say that X is a threat to the

existence of the state or society.12 Once the language of threat is invoked – and widely believed by

domestic constituencies within the state – the state in question is likely to address this issue through the

use of force rather than by means of negotiation. The Indus nourishes Pakistan, but flows down from

the Kashmir, largely controlled by India. The Tigris and Euphrates flow into Iraq from the highlands of

Turkey. The Nile flows through Egypt from the Sudan. The Jordan River flows through the West Bank,

but is largely controlled by Israel. The truly frightening outcome in these sorts of cases would be water

wars both between states and within them.13 Consider the following examples:

11

To review Barnet’s article, public in the March 2003 edition of Esquire magazine, see http://thomaspmbarnett.squarespace.com/globlogization/2010/8/17/blast-from-my-past-the-pentagons-new-map-2003.html 12

For a brief introduction to securitization theory, see Rens von Munster, “Securitization,” Oxford Bibliographies, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0091.xml 13

For an overview of water conflicts around the world, see Codi Yeager, “Water as a Weapon,” Circle of Blue, May 21, 2012 http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2012/commentary/editorial-in-the-circle-fresh-focus/water-as-a-weapon-and-weapons-for-water/. Another source to consult is the Global Policy Forum’s webpage on Water in

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 5

Libya, 2011: Qaddafi loyalists turned off water supplies to half the country.

Ethiopia and Kenya, 2011: Fighting along the border was spurred by droughts.

Uganda, 2009: Domestic violence increased due to water shortages.

China and Tibet, 2008: Protesters and police clashed over resource policy.14 Climate change is at the heart of these water conflicts. Irregular patterns of precipitation and melting

glaciers are redistributing water in ways that are plainly destabilizing. What can be done to adapt states

to inexorable climate change? Of particular note here is the importance of states investing in water

retaining infrastructure. Massive infrastructural investments would seem contrary to the current focus

on limiting state power in order to encourage market-led development. Infrastructure investments can

be regarded as a kind of environmental Keynesianism.15 Such projects might well considered that

province of the World Bank financing in infrastructure that can create generate growth as well as

alleviate the current global unemployment crisis. The point about growth is important, of course,

because World Bank loans have to be somehow paid for. The need to generate returns on investment

may be incompatible with the requisites of sustainable development and particularly with providing

people with access to supplies of fresh water. The problematic history of privatizing water utilities in the

global south is testament to this.16 If water is a human right rather than a commodity, then water

infrastructure projects ought to be approached in the same way as education and healthcare: as

projects in which costs are socialized rather than somehow paid for with growth. Whether socialized or

not, the absence of such investments – by either the World Bank or states themselves - we are likely to

see resource conflicts. Such conflicts represent a way in which state and non-state groups adapt

themselves to climate change. Without a doubt, resource conflict is a negative form of adaptation that

will impair the ability of states to pursue development and to maintain the environmental commons –

the oceans, the atmosphere, and the climate – upon which all human life ultimately depends.

Delegates preparing for this committee might consider developing responses to particular water

conflicts or developing pre-emptive responses to water scarcity designed to the avoid the emergence of

acute conflict. These latter proposals can usefully focus on capacity building in the states and regions

Conflict, which contains numerous article on water conflicts over the course of the past decade. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security-council/dark-side-of-natural-resources/water-in-conflict.html 14

These examples are given in Yeager, Ibid. 15

For a critical review of the notion of environmental Keynesianism, see Bill Blackwater, “The Contradictions of Environmental Keynesianism,” Climate and Capitalism, July 14, 2012. http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/06/14/the-contradictions-of-environmental-keynesianism/ 16

For discussions of water privatization see website Food and Water Watch at http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/private-vs-public/

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 6

that are likely to be negatively affected by water scarcity. Such proposals could include details about

how such capacity building projects would be funded and with what degree of participation from both

states and affected communities. Other proposed resolutions might consider how interstate and inter-

communal tensions within regions suffering from water scarcity can be reduced. This brings us back to

the terms of securitization theory. Just as issues can be securitized by means of invoking the presence

of an enemy that threatens the collective way of life, so too can they be de-securitized and returned to

the sphere of negotiation. In a world entering the throes of the climate change, this is an ability that

sorely needs to be developed.

Economic and Finance (1)

Role of the International Monetary Fund in Promoting Global Economic Growth

The role of the IMF has changed over the course of its history. Instituted in the 1944 as the United

States, the United Kingdom and allied states began to plan for the peace, the IMF established an

international monetary order of fixed currency rates. Within this new currency system, the IMF played

the role of lender of last resort to states that had exhausted their foreign currency reserves necessary

for trade. The IMF was a part of the so called Breton Woods order which was oriented toward

strengthening the institutional foundation of international economy by means of expanding trade

through tariff reduction (the role of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs), and fixed exchange

rates in order to avoid the destabilizing fluctuations in currency values. Over the course of the post-

Cold War period, the IMF developed conceptions of economic normalization, which it attached as

conditions of loans it made to member countries. These conditions became the basis of structural

adjustment policies.17 With the collapse of the Breton Woods international monetary order in the early

1970s and the gigantic increase in developing country debt during this same decade, structural

adjustment policy defined the role of the IMF in world affairs. The era of structural adjustment began in

earnest in 1982 when Mexico declared a moratorium on servicing its international debts. Structural

adjustment lending advanced new loans and avoided a meltdown of the international financial system

while also imposing conditions that dismantled programs of the national economic development. The

overriding goal of IMF structural adjustment programs was to suppress inflation while imposing fiscal

austerity, tariff reductions and widespread privatization of publicly held assets. This mix of policies

sought to create a context for outward oriented growth. Under the tutelage of the IMF, dozens of states

17

For a an overview of structural adjustment policy, see Third World Traveler, “How the IMF and World Bank Exploit the Globe,” http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global_Economy/Structural_Adjustment.html

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 7

began to focus on integration into the global economy. The IMF, in effect, leveraged the debt crisis to

the advance a particular market oriented conception of development – so called neo-liberalism.

There have been recurring financial crises since the early 1980s – including the 1994 Peso Crisis and the

1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis – in which the IMF provided fresh loans in exchange for further economic

liberalization. By the late 1990s, the IMF had become a proponent of the financial liberalization – that

is, eliminating national control over financial systems and allowing finance capital to circulate freely.

The IMF regarded this full capital mobility as a basis of economic growth. Through it, the world’s savings

could be efficiently distributed to those regions of the world where rapid economic growth was possible.

Since the onset of the economic crisis of the 2008, however, the role of capital mobility is generating

economic growth has been increasingly subject to doubt. The IMF has begun to accept some forms of

financial regulation in order to limit potentially destabilizing flows of short-term finance capital.18 In the

midst of the 2008 financial crisis, the IMF also became increasingly concerned with the growth of

economic inequality. Indeed, the IMF argued that the growth of economic inequality was an underlying

cause of the crisis and that future growth depended on workers re-gaining bargaining power against the

owners of capital.19 Most recently, leading IMF economists have called attention to the damaging

impact of austerity on economic growth in economies around the world.20 As the IMF has articulated

these new concerns, it has also received new funding to make loans for the purpose of financial

stabilization, acquiring $430 billion in new lending capacity on the strength of contributions from the

United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan.21

IMF member countries disagree about the pace of fiscal consolidation (or debt reduction) in relationship

to economic growth. A particular focus of IMF efforts is the financial crisis in Europe. And this has

generated controversy about whether contributions from emerging market countries, such as Brazil and

China, ought to be used to finance the debt of Italian office workers and Spanish retirees. Brazil’s

finance minister argued for increasing the contributions and voting rights of emerging market countries

18

The Breton Woods Project, “IMF new views on capital flows ‘landmark’ but still ‘only a baby step forward’,” December 6, 2012. http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-571589 19

Ambrose Evans Pritchard, “IMF raises the specter of civil wars as economic inequalities worsen,” The Telegraph, February 1, 2011. http://www.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/the-three-sisters-and-other-institutions/the-international-monetary-fund/49768.html?itemid=49768 20

See Paul Krugman, “The Big Fail,” New York Times, January 6, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/opinion/krugman-the-big-fail.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0 21

Ann Lowrey, “Agreement on a global fire war but little beyond that,” New York Times, April 22, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/business/global/agreement-on-a-global-firewall-but-little-beyond-that.html?pagewanted=all

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 8

relative to European states.22 For much of its existence, the IMF was dominated by the United States

and Europe. Today it is becoming a more global institution. The controlling interests with of the IMF

are no longer the G-7 but the G-20. How can this increasingly global IMF use its financial resources to

improve the performance of the global economy? How can the IMF’s concerns with capital controls and

inequality be incorporated into its policies? How should the IMF rethink the conditions that it attaches

to its loans?

Economic and Finance (2)

Eurozone Turmoil

Both the old cores (US and EU) and the emerging cores of global capitalism (the BRIC states) are

reporting lower levels of growth. For a long time, the US consumer market facilitated growth by

absorbing global exports – particularly from China. China’s growth – and rapid urban development – has

facilitated growth in developing countries, particularly in Latin America, but also Germany. EU implosion

would certainly reinforce already extant tendencies toward global economic stagnation.23 Such

tendencies might corrode the whole international liberal order constructed under the auspices of first

the Breton Woods institutions and then the Washington Consensus. States might engage in

protectionism. More generally, the lack of growth leads to a zero sum politics both between and within

states and promises a more brutish world. In the EU context, austerity policies have the effect

undermining the capacities of highly indebted societies to achieve economic growth and this can then

lead to a vicious cycle of more austerity policies and less growth. In the EU context, these austerity

policies are being undertaken by weaker members in of the European Union (Spain, Portugal, Ireland

and Greece) as a condition for loans to enable these countries to service their staggeringly high

government debts. These arrangements are reminiscent of the Third World debt crisis of the 1980s in

which the International Monetary Fund made structural adjustment policies a condition for the loans

that enabled debtor states to continue to service their debts. Debtor states became policy takers rather

than policy makers. European debtor states are going through the same process.

Here are two interpretations of the Eurozone Crisis that may serve to frame some of the debate in this

22

Ibid. 23

For a discussion of contemporary trends toward economic stagnation, see Gopal Balakrishnan, “Speculations on the Stationary State,” New Left Review 59, September-October 2009, http://newleftreview.org/II/59/gopal-balakrishnan-speculations-on-the-stationary-state

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 9

committee. The first is from columnist Ruchir Sharma of the Financial Times, who compares the

Eurozone debt crisis to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-8. In the latter, Asian economies accumulated

debt by maintaining pegged currencies that attracted short term capital or hot money in to the reigon.

Locals borrowed at low interest rates and when the prospect of returns came into question – as trade

deficits expanded across region – capital fled and the crisis was precipitated. The Asian economies

bounced back strongly, however, with currency devaluations that lowered wage costs and fueled

growth. The peripheral zones of the EU (Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal) may be able to pursue a

similar trajectory, but not so much through currency devaluations as by means of the austerity policies

that will restore peripheral Europe’s competitiveness. Of course, this is a painful adjustment, but it is

happening, as Sharma notes:

Europe is also making the necessary, painful adjustment in labour costs. Measured from recent peaks, unit labour costs have fallen roughly 7 per cent in Spain, Portugal and Greece. The star, however, is Ireland where a 17-percentage-point swing has created the first current account surplus in peripheral Europe at 9 per cent of GDP. Unit labour costs, meanwhile, are down 18 per cent from their peak.24

Writing in the Guardian, Costa Lapivitsas observes that financial markets in Europe and have calmed as

austerity policies have been implemented across peripheral Europe and as, concomitantly, the European

bank has purchased the debt of countries at risk of insolvency.25 But these circumstances do not

portend an imminent return to economic prosperity, as Sharma contends. Rather they signal the

transformation of the European periphery into a German Eurozone, rather similar to East Germany,

where wages are low, social benefits reduced, and economies deregulated. Missing of course is the

redistribution of tax revenue from the West to East Germany. Germany has refused to countenance this

on a European scale and what one is beginning to see here is the collapse of a European model of

economic integration in which the wealthier regions helped to subsidize the development of the

peripheral regions. Perhaps the North American Free Trade Agreement – minus a common currency – is

the real model for what EU is becoming. If that is the case, the EU crisis is likely to engender prolonged

economic deprivation. This cannot be good news for the rest of the global economy. The overriding

question is what can states do to encourage the resolution of the Eurozone crisis? Should they

encourage austerity policies on the belief that they will lead to restored competitiveness and growth?

Should they encourage leading EU states, particularly Germany, to ease its insistence on austerity and

24

Ruchir Sharma, “Why Europe Will Bounce Back in 2013,” Financial Times, December 20, 2012. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c499b248-3fbf-11e2-b0ce-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2GGMkEIir 25

Costa Lapivitsas, “Germany’s Austerity Plans will Beggar Europe,” The Guardian, December 25, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/26/germany-austerity-beggar-europe-eurozone

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 10

pursue policies aimed at stimulating depressed levels of demand and thereby regenerating economic

growth?26

Balancing Corporate Rights and Government Capacities in the Negotiation of Trade Agreements

This topic focuses on an important feature of the North American Free Trade Agreement that has been

reproduced in other US sponsored regional and bilateral agreements: namely, chapter 11 provisions

granting foreign corporations greater protections against so called regulatory takings. Also pertinent to

this topic is the dispute resolution process established through the creation of the World Trade

Organization in 1994. Both NAFTA and the WTO dispute resolution processes set up the tribunals that

function outside the judicial institutions of any given nation state. In effect, these tribunals function to

create new rights for corporations while rolling back the powers of states. At issue is whether these

trade agreements establish a reasonable balance between corporate rights and governmental

capacities. Turning first to NAFTA, chapter 11 provides foreign corporations with the right to sue host

governments within special NAFTA tribunals over the regulatory takings. From the point of view of the

US constitution, regulatory takings can be understood in relationship to the fifth amendment, which

prohibited government from taking private property without due process and compensation.

Corporations affected by government regulations have argued that these regulations amount to a

partial taking of their property, for which they are entitled to compensation. But this position has not

been well received by the Supreme Court in the US, which has argued that corporations must show that

regulatory takings have destroyed almost all the value in a particular property in order to have standing.

The NAFTA standard on this question has been more lenient. In a series of decisions, foreign

corporations have claimed and received damages for regulatory takings. Here are several examples,

drawn from the Global Trade Watch report NAFTA Chapter 11 Investor-State Cases: Lessons for CAFTA27:

Mexico denied the California based Metalclad corporation a permit to build a toxic in an ecological preserve in Mexico. The Mexican government had to paid Metalclad $15.6 million in compensation.

Canada’s phase out of a dangerous pesticide and its bans on the gasoline additives that pollute ground water were challenged within NAFTA tribunals as regulatory takings. Canada reversed its ban on another gasoline additive and paid the Ethyl Corporation, which brought the complaint, $13 million.

26

This is the policy orientation espoused by the Economics Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, an economic columnist for the New York Times who writes frequently on the Eurozone crisis. To review Krugman’s work, see his blog, Conscience of a Liberal at http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/. 27

This 2005 report is available at http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAReport_Final.pdf

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 11

Loewen, a Canadian funeral conglomerate, challenged a civil suit brought against it by funeral homes in the state of Mississippi for predatory business practices. While Loewen did not win compensation, the NAFTA tribunal established the precedent that adverse court decisions may be regarded as government actions against which foreign investors are granted recourse through Chapter 11.

These Chapter 11 cases raised concern in the US Congress and amongst state and local governments.

Members of Congress specifically wanted to avoid the incorporation of new chapter 11 provisions in

future trade agreements. But these concerns have been ignored. The Central American Free Trade

Agreement and other bilateral trade agreements negotiated by the US trade representative include

enhanced protections for foreign investors.

Turning to the World Trade Organization, one can note, first of all, that the agreement is vast. The text

comprises some 28,000 pages. The dispute resolution process establishes the tribunals that, similar to

chapter 11, exist outside of the any state based judicial system. States may bring complaints against one

another for failure to adhere to WTO rules on trade. If they win, they are able to legitimately impose

tariffs against the offending nation, which are equivalent to the losses they incurred as a result of the

trade rule violations. Similar to chapter 11, the WTO process has the effect of restraining government

capacities. Governments may change policy in order to comply with the WTO or they may refrain from

pursuing certain public interest policies in order to avoid the prospect of the WTO complaint and the

punitive tariffs that might emerge from it. For developing countries, the dispute resolution process is

expensive. Developing countries must hire law firms with trade law expertise to represent their

interests. WTO decisions have tended to uphold the interests of the developed countries while imposing

new burdens and obligations on developing countries. Taken as a whole, the dispute resolution process

encourages states to bring complaints in order to further open markets by means of restraining the

regulatory capacities of other states. The US, for example, accepts adverse rulings from the WTO in

order to preserve its capacity to initiate its own complaints.28 Similar to chapter 11, the overall dynamic

that emerges here is one of waning state powers and growing corporate freedoms and privileges.

It is important to recognize in all of this that NAFTA and the WTO are agreements of the 1990s. The

world of the 21st century is different than the world of the 1990s. Global environmental crises are

28

On this point, see the paper by Chakravarti Raghavan, The World Trade Organization and its Dispute Resolution System: Tilting the Balance Against the South, Third World Network, Trade and Development Series #9. http://twnside.org.sg/title/tilting.htm Another relevant document that discusses the WTO from the perspective of developing countries is Aileen Kwa’s Power Politics in the WTO, published by the organization Focus on the Global South. This report focuses on the ways in which trade representatives from developing countries have been politically marginalized at WTO meetings (http://www.citizen.org/documents/powerpoliticsKWA.pdf).

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 12

becoming more acute. The global economy is slowing. Interest in environmental sustainability is more

pronounced. In light of the realities of the present, what kind of balance should be struck between

corporate rights and governmental capacities? Do the trade agreements of the 1990s have to be

rethought in this regard? Should new trade agreements entertain different provisions? Should old

trade agreements be modified? And finally, are these trade agreements fair to developing countries in

terms of their capacity to utilize dispute resolutions mechanisms to advance their own interests?

Economic and Social Council

Development Aid in an Age of Austerity

Developed countries are drowning in debt. The United States is surely a leading culprit as the world’s

biggest debtor state. Sharp cuts in government spending are mandatory in order to avoid economic

catastrophe. Unfortunately, this means cuts in development aid. Surely cuts in development aid must

take precedence over cuts in programs that benefit the citizens of developed countries. In an age of

fiscal austerity, developing countries are on their own. We might, however, re-think our notions of

austerity by considering some of the sources of development aid. These include the domestic resources

that developing countries are able to harness, official development assistance (ODA) from developed

countries and new sources of development aid in the form of global taxes on financial transactions. For

developed countries, resources for ODA and other spending priorities could come from eliminating fossil

fuel subsidies ($531 billion), reducing military spending by 25% ($435 billion), eliminating offshore tax

havens ($347 billion), phasing out agricultural subsidies ($187 billion). Revenues for the developing

countries could be raised by several means: through the implementation of a tax on financial

transactions ($650 billion)29, forgiving the debt accrued by dictatorships ($735 billion, generating $81

billion per year in reduced debt payments), rolling back trade liberalization and increasing the tariff

revenues of the developing country states ($61.3 billion).30 Resources for development aid are not so

difficult to identify if one is willing to question some of the policy commitments that are typically not

29

It is worth noting the Bill Gates endorsed a financial transactions tax in his speech on development aid to the G-20 in Cannes, France. A text of Gates’ speech and his technology and innovation oriented approach to development aid may be found at http://www.gatesfoundation.org/press-releases/Pages/financing-for-development-g20-summit-110408.aspx 30

These figures are drawn from a report published by the non-governmental organization Share the World’s Resources entitled Financing the Global Sharing Economy. This report can be downloaded from the organization’s website at http://www.stwr.org/.

SWFLMUN 13 Topic Guide 13

subject to debate these days.31 Against this backdrop, members of this committee should consider a

recent proposal from the International Labor Office for $60 billion safety net for the world’s most

vulnerable people. This program would be patterned after Brazil’s Bolsa Familiar and South Africa’s

Child Protection Program. The program would be administered as a global fund to which developing

countries would make a two thirds contribution ($40 billion) and developed countries a one third

contribution ($20 billion). The fund would have two functions: to enable the 48 least developed

countries to establish a “social protection floor” and to back up a state’s social protection system in the

event it is overwhelmed by natural disasters, wars or other cataclysmic events. The need for such a

project stems from the fact that, according to the ILO, nearly three quarters of the world’s population

does not have access to any sort of social protection in the event of unemployment, illness, disability,

crop failure, or increased food prices.32 In responding to these shocks, poor households pull children out

of school, and sell key household assets such as tools, land or animals, which diminished their capacity

to respond to future shocks. While this proposed global fund may sound expensive in this age of

austerity, it in fact would save money in the long term by averting acute humanitarian crises. Moreover,

such a program could also have a beneficial effect on the global economy by allowing markets in less

developed countries to expand as a result of the most of the world’s most vulnerable people gaining a

modicum of economic security. Indeed, we might well view the provision of such security as a human

right. Olivier de Schutter, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to food, contends that “[w]hen the

global financial crisis struck, Governments stepped in to prop up banks that were deemed too important

to fail. The same logic must now be applied to basic social protection, which is too crucial to be

denied.”33 One of the stakes in this proposal is our conception of a united humanity. The world today is

divided into secure minorities and – in light of the disruptions associated with climate change – an

increasingly vulnerable majority. The prospects for helping this vulnerable majority are limited if we

accept the political and economic constraints that are embedded within most contemporary political

discourse. We should try to think beyond these limitations. Delegates are bound, of course, to

represent their state’s interests, and so they might well be obligated to think within them. Proposals for

31

In a 2012 speech to the World Economic Forum, philanthropist Bill Gates argued that the global economic crisis was no excuse to cut levels of development aid. A transcript of Gates’ remarks may be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/billg/speeches/2008/01-24WEFDavos.aspx 32

A detailed description of this proposal authored by Olivier De Schutter and Magnalena Sepulveda entitled Underwriting the Poor: A Global Fund for Social Protection may be found at http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/otherdocuments/20121009_gfsp_en.pdf 33

De Schutter’s comment can be found at the UN’s website for the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food at http://www.srfood.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2513-underwrite-the-poor-like-we-underwrote-the-banks-un-experts-propose-global-fund-for-social-protection

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how to do more with fewer resources for the ODA would be welcome in this committee. But the

political and economic assumptions on which such proposals are based are not sacrosanct.

United Nations Development Program

Urbanization and the Social Inclusion

By definition a slum is characterized as an area that embodies a combination of the following

characteristics 1) Inadequate access to safe water 2) Inadequate access to sanitation and other

infrastructure 3) Poor structural quality of housing 4) Overcrowding and 5) Insecure residential status34.

There are more than a quarter of a million slums on earth, the UN estimates that somewhere between

835 million and 2 billion people now live in some type of slum35, with estimates that by 2030 about 60

per cent of the world’s population will live in cities, a trend that equals the addition of a city of 1 million

residents every week36. Lacking adequate access to water, toilets, and trash removal, crowded slums

also breed diseases that threaten the public health of entire cities37. There are many contributing factors

that give rise to slums, the biggest one is financial; with the financial crisis and the historic reduction of

rural jobs, a migration to cities in search for better-paying jobs has increased38. The lack of access to

finance is most critical, since many times those residing in slums are excluded from the formal economy

sector39 and as such are often excluded from banks, and other financial institutions, and thus

contributing to their exclusion towards the periphery40. Governments in the past have tried to address

34

Lack of access to public services – a slum generally lacks access to public services such as sewerage, water supply, roads, street lamps etc. or even if they have them, they provide poor service facilities. http://www.ngoforum.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=6 35

Mike Davis. Planet of Slums: Urban Involution and the Informal Proletariat http://www.uninsubria.it/uninsubria/allegati/pagine/1438/SUMMER_SCHOOL4.pdf 36

See. State of the World’s Cities Report http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=1163 37

Slums are often recipients of the city’s nuisances, including industrial effluent and noxious waste, and the only land accessible to slum dwellers is often fragile, dangerous or polluted – land that no one else wants. People in slum areas suffer inordinately from water-borne diseases such as typhoid and cholera, as well as more opportunistic ones that accompany HIV/AIDS. The Challenge of Slums — Global Report on Human Settlements 2003. http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=555&cid=5373 38

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/526: 39

The major disadvantage is the wholesale loss of formal-sector job opportunities in both the public sector and the private import-substitution industries, so that informal-sector jobs, with no security and often with subsistence wages, are all that is left. See Planning Sustainable Cities http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=555&cid=5607 40

Conventional housing finance is usually only available to higher-income groups, resulting in the highly segmented housing markets that separate informal and formal housing markets throughout the developing world. (66). Slum dwellers’ ‘life chances’ are low; they are rarely able to obtain formal-sector jobs because of their lack of social capital, including lack of education, lack of patronage and contacts, and a general exclusion from ‘regular society. The Challenge of Slums — Global Report on Human Settlements 2003 http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=555&cid=5373

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the problems of slums by either a) ignoring the problem at hand or b)mandating evictions and

resettlements, and it is evident that neither of these two options have done anything to resolve the

problem. For any plan to be effective, governments will have to take the lead in directing service and

shelter delivery for the growing urban population (failure to do this in the past has resulted in close to 1

billion slum dwellers worldwide)41. In facing the challenge of slums, urban development policies should

vigorously address the issue of livelihoods of slum dwellers and urban poverty in general (only then can

the general problem be addressed), and as such they must go beyond traditional approaches that have

tended to concentrate on improvement of just housing, and infrastructure .

Delegates in this committee shall be reminded that the issues of squatter villages and slums, is not solely

a national problem, but instead the result of failure of policy at all levels – international, national and

local. At the international level, policies that have weakened national governments without any

countervailing central control (foreign companies, cheap labor, etc.) that create for an unrestrained

globalization that leads towards greater inequality and marginalization. At the national level,

liberalization and the sectorial fragmentation policy have failed to support the urban and rural sectors.

Lastly at the local level there has been lack of management leading for slums to many times be a zone of

degradation. Delegates should also look forward to not only solving the problem of slums through

reconstruction, but also look to make these into sustainable cities (given the fact that most greenhouse

gases are created in these areas) that will outlast the present population.42 In drafting resolutions, this

committee is advised to avoid the pitfalls of the past which include among others: governance gaps,

jurisdiction overlaps, competency conflicts, duplication of functions, waste of precious resources,

decentralization of problematic issues, and general confusion regarding the developmental directions to

be followed.

41

The move of responsibility to lower levels of government, known as subsidiarity – in theory, this should strengthen national governments by enabling them to focus on their principal roles of centralized financial support, rather than the minutiae of local management or service delivery. This has been partly due to the reluctance to dismantle large bureaucracies, formerly responsible for service delivery, and to transfer the funds to local government. But it is also due to a sense of bewilderment in the face of rapid change, as long-standing channels of authority and support are dismantled. Financing Urban Shelter http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=555&cid=5369 42

Mike Davis has argued that the design of sustainable cities requires an emphasis on public affluence rather than private consumption. The model of private consumption pursued in the developed countries is simply impossible to replicate in the global South. But cities are nonetheless rich seedbeds of sustainable development. They require a different kind of development. This might be understood in terms of the kinds of transportation infrastructures, public spaces, and zoning patterns that cities pursue. Will these emulate the resource intensive patterns of the development of the United States? See Mike Davis, Who will Build the Ark? In Countercurrents, January 29, 2010. http://www.countercurrents.org/davis290110.htm

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Social and Humanitarian

Violence Against Children: How Can Human Security Framework Address the Issue of Violence

Against Children?

The tragic events of the December 20 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut remind us that

curtailing violence against children is an urgent matter. Protecting the lives of children is a security issue

and there are different ways in which we can understand security. The national security perspective

defines security in terms of protection of the national territory and vital national interests. But as the

United Nations Development Program noted in 1994: “Forgotten [in this national security perspective]

were the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their daily lives. For many of

them, security symbolized protection from the threat of disease, hunger, unemployment, crime, social

conflict, political repression and environmental hazards.”43 These are the concerns of human security as

opposed to national security. The relevance of a human security perspective to the problem of violence

against children was made quite clearly in Resolution 67/23 approved by the third committee of the

United Nations General Assembly on November 21, 2012. In its perambulatory clauses, the committee

articulated its concerns for the well-being of children, stemming from the current economic and

financial crisis, the persistence of poverty, social inequality, inadequate social and economic conditions,

pandemics, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation,

environmental damage, natural disasters, armed conflict, foreign occupation, displacement, violence,

terrorism, trafficking in children, commercial sexual exploitation of children, child prostitution, child

pornography, child sex tourism, neglect, illiteracy, hunger, intolerance and legal protection.44 This is a

daunting list of concerns, which conventional national security perspectives can do relatively little to

address. National security concerns need to make way for a human security agenda. The question for

this committee is how can a human security perspective be used to the address some of the multiple

sources of violence against children?

43

United Nations Development Program (UNPD), Human Development Report, 1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 44

The text of this resolution is attached to the UN webpage for the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence Against Children at http://srsg.violenceagainstchildren.org/story/2012-12-03_594

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To consider this question, it is important to consider how human security approaches have been used in

different parts of the world.45 Human security is typically not a top down project, but rather a

community based pursuit in which human security becomes increasing central to the ways in which

people think of themselves as members of a community. Governments can facilitate human security.

But human security is really a partnership between civil societies and governments. A good example of

this kind of partnership might be seen in the case of Bangladesh. In the 2002, the United National

Development Program undertook an investigation of the structural causes of the human insecurity in

Bangladesh. The report produced a 132 different recommendations for improving human security.

Rather than just release the report and have done with it, the UNDP designed a public relations and

media campaign designed to make citizens, professionals, police and policy makers aware of

Bangladesh’s human security problems. As a result of this campaign, people became more inclined to

insist on recognition of human security norms within the family, the schools, the criminal justice system

and budgets of different parts of the government. Bangladesh can be considered as a human security

success story.46 The point to emphasize with this example is that improving human security involves far

reaching social transformations for which the UNDP, non-governmental organization and governments

can serve as catalysts. Clearly the problems of violence against children cry out for human security

solutions. These solutions involve not only analysis but advocacy. Particularly with regard to violence

against children, effective advocacy involves breaking the silence and complicity that is often associated

with these patterns of violence. This is an exceptionally broad topic because, as pointed out above, the

sources of violence against children are so wide in scope. Delegates should attempt to address as many

of the causes of violence against children as possible, drawing on a human security framework.

Political and Legal

Security Council Reform

Security Council reform has been a much discussed topic at the United Nations.47 The UN Security

Council was designed to be a concert of the great powers. The UN Charter invests the UN Security

45

A gateway to academic research and policy reports on human security can be found at The Human Security Report Project http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/. 46

A short video of the UNDP’s efforts to promote human security in Bangladesh can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD3WB26_cEA 47

Background readings on the topic of Security Council reform may be found at the website Center for UN Reform Education http://www.centerforunreform.org/node/23.

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Council with immense powers to maintain international peace and security. The chief constraint to the

exercise of these powers has been the need to secure unanimity amongst the veto-wielding permanent

five members of the Security Council. These institutional arrangements have come under increased

international criticism as the balance of international economic and political power has shifted away

from the US led alliance that defeated the axis powers in World War Two. There are several of debates

to consider on the topic of Security Council reform. First, one might consider a basic institutional

transformation through which the Security Council might come to operate more on the basis of duties

than of state interests. This was the organizing principle of the League of Nations’ collective security

community. An attack on anyone one member was construed as an attack on the community as a

whole and all states had a duty to rebuff such attacks. Of course, these duties were not embraced in

actual cases of interstate aggression involving expansionist policies on the part of the Axis powers during

the 1930s. As a result, duty as an organizing principle on international security cooperation was

dismissed as idealistic and unrealistic. But today we can see a re-emergence of duty based conceptions

of intervention in terms of the right to protect, which defines sovereignty as a duty rather than a right.

And when states cannot perform this duty, then the international community must assume the right to

protect. How might the right to protect lead us to rethink the institutional workings of the Security

Council? Another debate, of course, is who should be a permanent, veto wielding member of the

Security Council? Should new permanent members be added? Should veto power be eliminated or

limited? Instead of veto power, could states adopt a system of majority weighted voting, similar to the

IMF and the World Bank in which voting rights are apportioned in relationship to the size of a member

state’s contribution to organization?

Responsibility to Protect, the Moral Duties of States and the Welfare of Children in Post-Conflict

Zones

Protecting Children in Conflict Situations. It is a fact that armed conflict is determinedly present in our

world, and as such the issue of protecting children that are caught up in this conflict is persistent and

urgently needs to be addressed. In the 2005 World Summit the General Assembly adopted the ICISS’s

The Responsibility to Protect48 (RtoP) which acknowledged genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and

48

See International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect. http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS%20Report.pdf

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crimes against humanity49. The RtoP is governed by three main pillars which are 1) the responsibility to

prevent 2) the responsibility to react and 3) the responsibility to rebuild. In regards to children in conflict

situations the proposed guidelines established by the RtoP would be advisable in drafting a resolution

that would be geared to protecting children in conflict situations. How the guidelines provided in the

RtoP will be implemented still remain in controversy, for there is the question of state sovereignty,

military intervention, and funding, among other issues that need to be resolved before a practical and

pertinent solution can be crafted.

Children are the most vulnerable in a time of conflict, and even though there is sufficient international

patronage for a plan like the RtoP to be implemented into action there is also the disagreement

surrounding “humanitarian intervention” and how exactly these situations should be handled—for past

examples one can look at the case in Rwanda and how lack of adequate action led to mass genocide and

the deaths of thousands of children 50. One of the most acute dilemmas surrounding the protection of

children in areas of armed conflict is the fact of timing, and when to utilize military intervention51, and

what would be the qualifications necessary to implement such intervention52. Many states see military

intervention as a source of last resort, but what exactly qualifies as an extreme case of last resort? Other

controversies surrounding intervention entail the process of rebuilding in post-conflict regions. For an

effective plan to be implemented, there must be ensured sustainable reconstruction and rehabilitation,

too many times reconstruction has been inadequate—or performed in haste—that many important

matters such as disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of local security forces have often been

overlooked and neglected. This post-conflict phase if very important for the wellbeing of children, for it

there are no hospitals, schools, or a sense of order within these post-conflict regions, children are not

49

“State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity…the international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.” United Nations, 2005 World Summit Outcome, UN Doc. A/RES/60/1, 24 October 2005, paras. 138, 139, and 140.http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/world%20summit%20outcome%20doc%202005(1).pdf 50

UN forces were present, though not in sufficient number at the outset; and credible strategies were available to prevent, or at least greatly mitigate, the slaughter which followed in Rwanda. But the Security Council refused to take the necessary action. That was a failure of international will – of civic courage – at the highest level. Page 17. http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS%20Report.pdf 51

If a State fails to protect its populations or is in fact the perpetrator of crimes, the international community must be prepared to take stronger measures, including the collective use of force through the UN Security Council. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/63/677 52

4.2 Tough threshold conditions should be satisfied before military intervention is contemplated. For political, economic and judicial measures the barrier can be set lower, but for military intervention it must be high: for military action ever to be defensible the circumstances must be grave indeed. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/66/874

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only more exposed to violence, but are also exposed to their elders mistakes, thus sparking the vicious

cycle of violence and conflict once again.

In order for a resolution to be achieved all member states—since this is not just a matter of the Security

Council— should be aware of the expectations and shared responsibilities that this plan demands,

especially when military force is used to enforce them. When coming together to resolve these issues

delegates should pay attention to sensitive issues and how to correctly address them (e.g. flow of arms

or police equipment, which could be misused by repressive regimes that are manifestly failing to meet

their core responsibilities). They should also address who will be in charge of intervention, what type of

intervention should be enacted (depending on the intensity of the situation, and what scale should be

used in determining the level of the situation). The fundamental matter of state sovereignty is also in

place, for many states very zealously protect their national sovereignty and see these interventions as a

façade by outside actors to diminish their sovereignty, such as the DPRK53. The problem of funding

should also be considered—matters to be taken into account would be cost of intervention and cost of

reconstruction. And of course the biggest challenge that this committee will face in its attempts to

protect children in conflict situations will be to reach a consensus that will be binding in its nature, for

only then can a real solution be achieved54.

Commission on Sustainable Development

Rio+20: How Can States Open Pathways Toward Sustainable Development for the 21st Century?

Rio+20 summit met this summer, marking the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The

Earth Summit marked an important moment in global environmental politics. Three important

conventions emerged from the Earth Summit: the convention on biodiversity, the climate change

convention and the convention on desertification. The outcomes of Rio+20 were not as ambitious. The

conference did produce a 289 point communiqué, negotiated in advance by the envoys of states in

53

DPRK Statement at the GA debate on the Responsibility to Protect: “It is worth recalling that in the past, military attacks were launched on a sovereign state on the pretext of ‘humanitarian intervention’, and today, aggressions and interventions are ever more undisguised and even justified under the signboard of a ‘war on terror’, infringing upon sovereignty and killing a large number of innocent people” http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/North%20Korea%20_ENG.pdf 54

For a list of government statements addressing RtoP at the General Assembly Sixty-third session, see http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/component/content/article/35-r2pcs-topics/2493-general-assembly-debate-on-the-responsibility-to-protect-and-informal-interactive-dialogue-

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attendance. But document, observes the Economist, was full of weasel words and compromises. A

content analysis of this document conducted by the World Wildlife Foundation found that the term

“encourage” was used 50 times and the phrase “we will” only 5 times. Similarly, the phrase “support”

was used 99 times and “must” only 3 times.55 Environmental activists and European governments

hoped for a commitment on the part of governments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. Rio+20

delivered a far more circumspect willingness to “consider rationalising inefficient fossil fuel subsidies…in

a manner that protects the poor and the affected communities.”56 A discouraged George Monibot

noted that the leaders of major countries did not bother showing up to the conference. After Rio,

Monibot lamented that “we now know that governments have given up on the planet.”57 The

multilateral approaches to sustainable development initiated at the Earth Summit now seem exhausted.

But the outcome of the Rio+20 was not wholly bleak. One promising development was a commitment

to rethink how states measure progress by means of formulating environmentally friendly benchmarks

in renewable energy and the food security.58 These sustainable development goals (or SDGs) would

come into effect after 2015, when the period of the commitment for the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) has expired. Similar to the MDGs, SDGs would become central to the way in which the

international community conceptualizes and measures development. The precise meaning of

sustainable development goals will be determined by through debate and discussion with the UN

General Assembly and also within civil society.59 The deliberations of this committee are a part of this

discussion. Delegates in this committee should build on some of the discussions of sustainable

development goals that occurred within the second committee of the General Assembly in October of

2012. The UN has formulated several questions to guide this discussion:

1. How can the SDGs build on the MDGs and integrate sustainable development into the post-2015 development framework?

55

The Economist, “Many Mays but Few Musts.” June 23, 2012. http://www.economist.com/node/21557314 56

Ibid. 57

George Monibot, “After Rio, we know. Governments have given up on the planet,” The Guardian, June 25, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/25/rio-governments-will-not-save-planet 58

Jo Confino, “Rio+20: Jeffery Sachs on how business destroyed democracy and virtuous life,” The Guardian, June 22, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/rio-20-jeffrey-sachs-business-democracy The offers discussion of Sachs’ views on sustainable development goals and how these are emerging out of the millennium development experience. 59

See the UN website titled Conceptualizing a Set of Sustainable Development Goals: A Special Event of the Second Committee of the General Assembly at http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&nr=331&type=13&menu=1300

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2. How can the SDGs integrate the three pillars of sustainable development (the economic, social and environmental)?

3. How to develop universally applicable goals that at the same time take into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development?

Delegates should focus on developing answers to these questions that reflect the aspirations and

interests of their own countries but which can also establish a shared global framework for sustainable

development in the 21st century.

Security Council

Southern Sudan

Conflict in Syria

Delegates should prepare for this committee assignment simply by following developments in Southern

Sudan and Syria and paying close attention to the responses of the UN Security Council to the unfolding

situations in both of these countries. Delegates should also anticipate some sort of crisis scenario, to be

revealed at the conference.