New Year = New Problems

Wow that sounded WAAAAY more cynical than I wanted it to. Anyways, happy New Years everyone! I hope you had an awesome holiday with all the presents, turkey, gravy, and cake that you could ever want or handle. Now its time for more MUN!

The title of this post is much more fitting for this nice little article I found earlier. Its a nice little cynical piece for you to chew on that also goes into some of the possible future complexities of the Arab Spring. Don't spend too much time worrying about any economic issues or complications. You are the Security Council, you just need to have a peace settlement. Let the bean-counters in business and the finance department worry about the economic junk.

One thing you'll need to consider in your peace settlements is the role of domestic authorities. What role should the authoritarian governments play in any possible transition or should a transition be made? What is to be done about the various militia and rebel groups? What role should Islamist or conservative religious groups play in the formation of new governments? Your countries will have specific answers to these questions and you'll have to find some sort of compromise. To add some more cynicism, remember that your countries will also have their own agendas in the Middle East and therefore will have different interests and motivations than others.

Here is a nice article from the US Institute of Peace on the Arab Spring and peace in the Middle East. It won't give too much country-specific information for most of you but talks about how the mass protests might complicate current peace efforts.

Until next time, have an excellent New Years! Look for more frequent postings in 2012!

"To all the revolutionaries fighting to throw off the yoke of tyranny around the world: look at British democracy. Is that what you want?" -- Andy Zaltzman

Your chair with the cool hair who had the time to come up with this rhyme, Josh

Women's Rights Violations - They NEED to Stop

Hey SOCHUM delegates!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, stuffing yourselves with turkey and ham and whatnot. It's also good to point out that HSMUN 2012 is less than two months away! Isn't that exciting? That means that it's time to put our noses to the grindstone and start researching!

I previously had a post with several questions for Topic 2, so now I return to Topic 1: The question of dealing with women's rights violations in countries which only formally prohibit them.

Firstly, I want to explicitly state that this question does NOT intend to go against cultural or religious beliefs: we are not a group of religious pilgrims land-basting other beliefs or values. We are only focused on women's rights.

While it's true that the majority of women's rights violations occur outside of the Western world, I want all of you to also take into consideration violations within our own country, within our civilization. As an example, Canada and the United States both have issues with sexist prejudice, and those should be taken into consideration as well.

Next, as we turn our focus upon the most serious violations of women's rights, they do tend to congregate within Asia and the Middle East. Regardless of other factors, basic women's rights must be protected. So, my question is, how do we accomplish that without infringing upon sovereign rights or cultural beliefs?

Countries like China are notorious for blatant sexist preference, with an appalling number of female orphans compared to males. Yet China has signed onto the 'Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women', and ironically, the United States has not. How can we deal with these kinds of problems, when a government officially takes a stance, yet their internal policies or the behavior of their citizens directly contradicts said stance?

Something to think about...

Hey delegates,

With the holidays upon us, what else is your faithful DISEC crew doing but blogging about small arms and military tactics :)

In all seriousness though, we've got a couple new issues for you to think about for your second topic on military tactics resulting in high civilian casualties:

1) Sri Lanka: same old, same old - Just when you think Sri Lanka has opened meaningful investigations into military tactics used during the civil war, its internal investigations suspiciously absolve the military of all wrongdoing despite massive civilian casualties. Is it time to consider institutionalizing independent commissions run by the international community following armed conflicts? Are third parties the only ways to verify and establish wrongdoing?

2) Non-state actors: where do they stand? - The Geneva Convention was drafted in the aftermath of World War II to bind state actors, yet the proliferation of non-state actors has broken the "legitimate monopoly on violence" traditionally held by state militaries. Because most armed conflicts involve non-state actors, this legal ambiguity has translated to the use of military tactics that sometimes deliberately endanger civilians in asymmetrical warfare with seemingly no repercussions. While we may focus our scrutiny on countries like the United States engaging in counterinsurgency tactics, the fact remains that non-state actors often exploit civilians as camoflage or even shields against attacks by larger forces, and deliberately attack them to spread terror because they're the easiest targets. Often, they do this without legal or political consequences as they continue to receive support but are never brought before international courts. This article offers one interpretation of how the Geneva Convention applies to non-state actors and, more broadly, what can we do to engage these groups and what the international community can do to hold them accountable by denouncing their actions and refusing to shelter these groups. Yet largely, these non-state actors (rebel groups, insurgents, etc.) operate outside of the law and are never brought before international courts for crimes against humanities. Other articles show that the best practices might be to engage non-state actors in new frameworks like the Geneva Convention to extract commitments to respect civilian status and altering military tactics that place civilian populations in danger. In your working papers you might want to think about the changing nature of warfare and how we can make non-state actors more accountable for the tactics they use.

Signing off for Christmas festivities, but in the meantime...

Happy researching!

What happens if UN personnel commit a crime?

To get familiar with the issue of criminal accountability and immunity of UN personnel, it's probably a good idea to look at some of the sources of controversy in recent times. This press release outlines examples of criminal activity or human rights violations committed by UN personnel while working in developing nations. One of the difficulties with finding a workable framework for dealing with the situation is that there is a lack of communication between the UN and the local authorities; in addition, many of these nations lack an effective justice system. As delegates in the Legal committee, you'll have to work to find a way to reconcile the need for accountability with the current shortcomings of the system.

So, what has the UN's response been to allegations of abuse and criminal activity on the part of its personnel? This United Nations report assesses the situation and identifies many of the issues that have prevented many developing nations and human rights groups from ensuring that personnel are held accountable. Included in the report are recommendations of the most effective way for the UN to respond to the situation, which should give you an idea of the direction of your working papers for this topic.

Enjoy your winter breaks! Don't be too upset when the holidays are over, because it only means we'll be 2 weeks closer to HSMUN 2012.

WHOOOT! Research!

Hey guys!

So hopefully by now you are starting to get the hang of this research business and I figured we could perhaps offer you guys some extra information on the DISEASE topic!

Now disease is an important world issue! As you saw last week, the UN has entire site devoted to it (http://www.who.int/diseasecontrol_emergencies/en/)

To help you all see what has been done in the past (to sort of get an idea of what things nations tend to agree upon and pass in the UN), check you this site: http://www.who.int/tobacco/framework/wha_eb/wha_resolutions/en/index.html

In addition, if you are curious to see what outbreaks have been reported in your country (and what action the UN has taken), check this out: http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/country/en/index.html. It might be helpful to see what action the UN took in your own nation to help you figure out what action your nation would be willing to take in others.

Good luck and have fun! Don't forget to email us if you have any question!

GET OFF MA KOOLAID!!!

I haven't had koolaid in years and it makes me sad :(.

But lets talk serious business. Sovereignty. Its a fun little idea. Essentially, a country that is considered sovereign is one that has control over domestic, foreign, fiscal, and monetary policy. In other words, they dictate how to manage their own domestic and international affairs. Since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, sovereignty has been considered to be an undeniable state right.

Even looking at the UN Charter, we see this concept of sovereignty. No state is permitted by the UN Charter to intervene in the domestic affairs of a state. But what does this have to do with the Arab Spring states? Am I just some crazy person rambling about political terms? Yes. But this is relevant I swear!

Questions have already arisen in the UN about sovereignty. In the case of the Arab Spring, producing a viable peace settlement may require outside intervention. The question then becomes what degree of external intervention is ideal/acceptable to the different actors involved? Some countries openly opposed the intervention in Libya while others feel that the resolution did not go far enough. Some feel that the issue should either be handled by the countries in question or some regional arrangement while others would rather see broad UN involvement. Check out this article and read the section on conditional sovereignty. Then read up on Responsibility to Protect... its highly relevant.

In the meantime, keep it real home skillets! Oh! Almost forgot! News update! The UN recently updated its Libya mandate. Super cool stuff and very important for your future peace deals! I leave you with a skill testing question: what is green and has wheels?

Grass... I lied about the wheels...

Your wicked awesomesauce chair, Josh

"Libyans do not know Denmark, they do not hate Denmark. They know Italy and they hate Italy." -- Muammar Gaddafi

First step? Admit there's a problem.

In the news this week:

Owning up to the past

• Following the civil war, the Sri Lankan government and the rebel group, the Tamil Tigers, have officially denied the use of improper military tactics such as using civilians as human shields or targeting insurgents known to be hiding among civilian populations. It is, however, a promising start that the government has recently announced it will begin a tally of civilian deaths from the war. Given that many civilian deaths go undocumented during internal conflicts, delegates should think about establishing objective criteria to document monitor civilian deaths and bring this information to the attention of the international community sooner.

Tensions in the Middle East

• The ISAF and NATO have announced they will begin retraining troops to avoid further civilian casualties after the latest fallout from airstrikes in Pakistan. The challenge of influencing the military tactics used by international military forces is a source of constant frustration for Pakistan and Afghanistan, who are only capable of forcing change through dramatic gestures such as Pakistan's recent closure of key NATO transport lines.

Hopefully, these news articles will get you thinking about the broader themes in preventing high instances of civilian casualties given that the international actors involved in using 'illegitimate' military tactics are autonomous bodies that don't fall directly under the jurisdiction of the United Nations. Can the UN rely on international pressure and goodwill alone to enact change?

Happy researching!

UNEP - U Need Environmental Protection, but we're going to talk about organic food right now

Hello, my dear UNEP delegates! I hope you have done some research on the resource extraction topic! Here are some points regarding the topic of standardization of the “organic” food label:

What exactly does “organic” mean?

Many nations have differing viewpoints on the definition of “organic”… make sure you know where your nation stands.

Who is this issue important to?

In Canada and the USA, the organic movement is a big deal that has been steadily growing in recent years. However, not all countries place such heavy importance on organic food. Make sure you know which countries are in favour, which countries are against, and which countries don’t really care. Know who your allies will be before even arriving to the conference!

Here is a quick video to get you thinking. While watching, think about how this relates to the standardization of the organic food label. Does this seem standard to you? Are the labels specific enough? Too vague? What company endorses these labels? Is it an American company? With these things in mind, is there a need for standardization of the organic food label? If so, why is it so important to standardize? Remember, your viewpoints will be those of your country, not yourself. This is the challenge of HSMUN, and one of the things that makes it such a fun and unique experience!

Happy researching!

UNEP Dais

SOCHUM - Saviours of Human Rights

After that cheesy, over-inspiring title.. Here's the actual useful part!

Firstly, here are some links to some very useful places where you can find official UN information. Firstly, in the Official Document System, you can search for any collection of key words to find documents pertaining to UN resolutions or working papers. Also, you should keep a lookout at the UN's Human Rights Website as well.

Secondly, I'll discuss Topic 2. While it may seem that I'm skipping Topic 1, I believe that Topic 2 is also more controversial because more countries tend to overstep this boundary. Whether we're talking about the USA PATRIOT Act or Canada's newly minted all-encompassing "Anti-Terrorism" movement that allows for unprecedented government authority, countries are now bypassing basic human rights in the fight against terrorism. However, here are a few questions to consider:
1. How effective are these measures? Do the ends justify the means?
2. How long are these powers going to remain in place for the government?
3. How do we prevent the improper use of these powers?
4. How do you justify the bypassing of human rights to defeat terrorism?

Hopefully, these links and questions help you guys if you ever have any difficulty!

Peace Out.

"Small Arms, Big Problem"

Hey delegates!

If you guys are stuck on the issue of small arms proliferation, check out this paper on the effects of small arms on security and development, with examples and case studies on effective arms reduction measures.

Also, take a look at this Economist article for a quick look at the international status of cluster bombs in a handy graphic.

Happy researching!