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
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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/.
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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.