Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 1 ...itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/rcoughlin/MUN14.pdf · These problems are global in scope. ... one can imagine the prospect for

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 1

Table of Contents

Economic and Finance Committee p. 1 International Labor Organization p. 3 UN Commission on Trade and Development p. 5 Disarmament and Security Committee (1) p. 7 Disarmament and Security Committee (2) p. 8 UN Commission on Sustainable Development p. 11 Social and Humanitarian Committee p. 13 Special Legal and Political Committee p. 16 United Nations Development Program p. 19 Legal Committee p. 21 United Nations Security Council p. 23

1. Economic and Finance Committee

Preventing the Recurrence of Global Financial Crises

The global financial crisis of the 2008 was far from exceptional, but rather one of a series of

financial crises that have shaken the global economy over the course of the last three decades.

These crises have corresponded to the emergence of a politically powerful and under-regulated

global financial system in which bank and other financial entities are constantly on the hunt for

new assets upon which they can speculate. Financial analysts Laura Gottesdiener reports that a

new money making strategy for large scale financial firms is to buy up foreclosed properties,

usually in lower income neighborhoods, rent them out to tenants on highly disadvantageous

terms and securitize rental payments that are then sold to investors.1 Former Prime Minister of

the United Kingdom Gordon Brown has very recently warned that we – in the sense of we

denizens of the global economy – are stumbling towards another crash.2 The underlying cause

of this trend is that the problems that led to the 2008 crisis have still not been adequately

addressed. These include excessive lending, shadow banking, reckless lending and too big to

fail banks, all driven by financial incentives of bankers to undertake significant financial risks in

return for huge bonuses. These problems are global in scope. While there has been significant

financial reform in the United States under the Obama administration with federal government

finally promulgating a reasonably robust version of the Volker rule, the practices that have been

outlawed by the Volker Rule – i.e., banks making risky derivative based investment with insured

deposits – are still allowed in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

1 See Laura Gottesdiener, “The Empire Strikes Back,” TomDispatch, November 26, 2013. Accessed at

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175777/. 2 See Gordon Brown, “Stumbling Towards Another Crash,” New York Times, December 20, 2013. Accessed at

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/opinion/gordon-brown-stumbling-toward-the-next-crash.html

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China, in particular, is a locus for potential financial crisis. As analyst Pepe Escobar notes,

China’s development strategy under its new leader Xi Peng is focused achieving massive

urbanization in China, a gargantuan project that will entail some $42 trillion dollars in public

investment, much of which will be borrowed money. Such loans are, of course, made on the

presumption that they will generate economic growth – and thus the revenues that will service

these loans in the future.3 Given the high levels of corruption of the Chinese state, it is likely

that some portion of the large scale investments will be driven by political rather than

economic rationales and will produce, in the long term, non-performing loans. To the extent

these loans become securitized and distributed into investment portfolios held around the

world, one can imagine the prospect for a new financial crisis emanating from China rather than

the United States. The sheer growth of lending in China is already impressive. As Brown

reports, “…total domestic credit in China has more than doubled to $23 trillion, from $9 trillion

2008 – as big an increase as if it added an entire United States commercial banking

sector…China’s growth of credit is now faster than Japan’s in 1990 and Americas before 2008,

with half of that growth in shadow banking.”4 Given the global scope of the international

financial system, solutions to financial crises need to be both pre-emptive and global in scope.

The international group, the G-20, rose to prominence in the wake of the global financial crisis

as a multilateral forum from which the global dimensions of the crisis could be addressed. The

G-20 created the Global Financial Stability Board. Mark Carney, the current Chairman of the

Bank of England, also serves as the director of the Global Financial Stability Board.5 Carney

published an editorial in the Financial Times last September outlining collaborative steps G-20

has taken and still needs to take in order to avert the crisis tendencies within the international

financial system.6 Among the steps the Carney outlines are increasing bank reserves

multilaterally in order to enhance the resilience of the international financial system and

subjecting “systemically significant banks and insurers” (i.e. too big to fail) to increased

supervision and capital requirements. The tenor of Carney’s assessment of financial reform in

the post-2008 era is upbeat while Brown, by contrast, is alarmed. Whatever one’s attitude, all

observers agree that the work of international financial reform, five years after the crisis, is yet

to be completed. Because all states are linked to the international financial system, all of them

must be concerned with the ultimate outcomes of these discussions. In preparing for this topic,

delegates should carefully review the work of the G-20 and the Global Financial Stability Board

against the backdrop of the threats to financial stability which continue to exist around the

3 See Pepe Escobar, “The Chimerica Dream,” TomDispatch, June 20, 2013. Accessed at

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175715/. 4 See Gordon Brown, “Stumbling Towards Another Crash,” New York Times, December 20, 2013. Accessed at

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/opinion/gordon-brown-stumbling-toward-the-next-crash.html 5The work of this organization may be examined at http://www.financialstabilityboard.org/

6 See Mark Carney, “A Plan to Finish Fixing the Global Financial System,” The Financial Times, September 9, 2013.

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world. Based on this assessment of the issue, what work most urgently needs to be done in

order to avoid a repeat of 2008?

2. International Labor Organization

Workplace safety in the global economy – in light of the Bangladesh factory

collapse

Bangladesh’s Ready Made Garment (RMG) industry has grown from $12,000 in exports in 1978

to $21.5 billion in the 2012-13. The rapid growth of the RMG industry in Bangladesh has

coincided with the steep drop in poverty rates – from 70% in the 1970s to 40% today. The

RMG industry provides jobs for the rural poor, particularly women, who comprise 80% of

employment in the industry, as they migrate from the countryside to the city. In spite of these

positive economic impacts, the RMG industry is heavily exploitative.7 Domestic factory owners

subcontract with US, Canadian and European clothing retailers. The factory owners are also

closely linked with the Bangladeshi government and are able to exert political influence to resist

worker demands for better wages and salaries. The average monthly salary within the RMG is

$39 – for a six day work week. Recent events in Bangladesh make abundantly clear the perilous

working conditions in the industry. It is worth briefly recounting these incidents. On November

24, 2012, a fire started on the ground floor of the Tarzeen Fashion – an eight floor structure.

Fire alarms went off, yet managers on the upper floors refused to dismiss workers and as the

blaze spread, 112 workers lost their lives. Seven months later in April of the 2013, the Rana

Plaza factory collapse occurred, killing 1,131 workers. Prior to the collapse, worker had refused

to enter the factory because they feared that it would collapse. Managers threatened to

withhold pay and induced the workers to enter the factory. Even after the Rana collapse,

factory related deaths and injuries have continued to occur. The problem of the work place

safety in Bangladesh is rooted in the disempowerment of RMG industry workers. There is little

unionization or collective bargaining in Bangladesh.

The situation in Bangladesh is hardly unique. Over the past several decades, transnational

corporations have globalized production, setting up manufacturing plants in hundreds of export

processing zones around the world. Women, migrating from countryside to city – as in the case

of Bangladesh – comprise the vast majority of these workers. Working conditions are poor,

unionization practically non-existent and factory owners politically powerful.8 And while these

jobs are exploitative, they have provided income to households that would likely suffer acute

7This characterization of the RMG industry in Bangladesh comes from recent majority staff report to the US Senate

Committee on Foreign Relations, “Worker Safety and Labor Rights in Bangladesh’s Garment Sector” (accessed at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html). 8 For a powerful exposition of workplace exploitation in Bangladesh, see the documentary The Hidden Face of

Globalization, produced in 2007. It is available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bhodyt4fmU.

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finance distress without these jobs. Thus the issues at stake in Bangladesh are also global

issues.

In response to the catastrophe in Rana Plaza major retailers in Europe, the United States and

Canada have begun implement programs that are designed to improve worker safety. These

firms have been moved by both the human tragedy of Rana Plaza, but also the negative media

publicity which has associated them with exploitative labor practices in Bangladesh. Two

different organizations have emerged from these concerns. A European led group, the Accord

on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (hereafter, the Accord) has made legally binding

commitments to help pay for fire safety measures and building safety upgrades that would

enhance worker safety. Legally binding means that global brands accept legal accountability for

lapses in workplace safety that happen within their supply chains. An American led group,

which calls itself the Alliance for Bangladeshi Worker safety is unwilling to make such legally

finding commitments and, instead of paying for factory safety improvements, proposes to offer

Bangladeshi factory owners low cost loans to make such improvements.9 The Alliance includes

within its ranks Target, Walmart, and the Gap. The Accord has been critical of the Alliance.

Individual firms have also responded to this issue. In November of 2013, Walmart published on

its website the results of the 75 inspections it commissioned in Bangladesh noting dramatic

improvements in working conditions in half of those factories. But these inspections were

criticized as inadequate by Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium

based in Washington, DC.10

The question at issue is what mode of regulation will best ensure workplace safety in

Bangladesh and in other labor intensive manufacturing regions around the world. Essentially,

the Alliance and Walmart propose corporate self-regulation rather than legally binding forms of

regulation that would enable workers to press claims against the global brands. In addition,

there are also national policy issues at stake. Governments should consider whether work

place violations should be met with the discriminatory tariffs that are designed to punish such

practices. But such policies would require the formulation of uniform standards of workplace

safety so that violations could be readily detected. And, more importantly, they would require

states to assent to transnational regulatory requirements on workplace safety. Developing

countries might allege that such standards are really just a means of covert protection designed

9For discussion of the global brand associations, see Steven Greenhouse, “Europeans Fault American Safety Effort

in Bangladesh,” New York Times, November 13, 2013. Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/business/international/europeans-fault-american-safety-effort-in-bangladesh.html 10

See Steven Greenhouse, “Europeans Fault American Safety Effort in Bangladesh,” New York Times, November 13, 2013. Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/business/international/europeans-fault-american-safety-effort-in-bangladesh.html

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 5

to staunch the emigration of jobs from developed to developing countries. They might further

suggest that such standards, if put into practice, would do more harm than good by slowing the

growth of employment in countries such as Bangladesh and while raising poverty levels. Yet

another aspect of the issue to consider is the importance of worker empowerment. The most

effective response to this issue may not rest with establishing global standards for workplace

safety, but rather global protections for unionization. Organized workers will then see to it that

their work places are safe.

3. United Nations Commission on Trade and Development

Review of the 1974 Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties States

The task of this committee is the review the 1974 Charter on the Economic Rights and Duties of

States, reflect on the experiences of development since that time and then formulate a new

version of the Charter for the 21st century.11 As you turn toward this task, consider the

following background information.

The 1974 Charter on the Economic Rights and Duties of States (hereafter referred to as the

Charter) is a document from a previous era. To understand this, one needs to think about the

idea of periodization: the division of historical time into conceptually meaningful units. The

Charter was written within the era of development, lasting from the beginnings of the Great

Depression to the early 1980s. This was a period of de-colonization, political independence and

economic nationalism, driven by activist states presiding over mixed economies (i.e.,

combinations of private and public ownership of economic assets). The era of development

was also a period in which the voting blocs within the General Assembly shifted decisively in

favor of the developing world. The Charter was an important expression of this emerging

political orientation of the General Assembly. It sought to articulate the aspirations of

developing countries toward more rapid and equitable development within the international

economic and political system. Some of the key provisions of the Charter are summarized

below. They include, the rights of developing countries

to be able to nationalize the assets of foreign corporations with reasonable

compensation provided to these latter parties

to be free from economic sanctions based on the economic, political or social system

that is freely adapted by the targeted state’s people,

to form economic cartels to in order to exert control over the supply of primary goods –

the principle exports of developing countries

to be able to gain access to new technologies that can fuel the processes of economic

development

11

The resolution may be accessed at http://www.un-documents.net/a29r3281.htm

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to be able to benefit for improved terms of trade, specifically for developing countries

to be able to grant special trade preferences to other developing countries in order to

pursue more rapid development.

All in all, the Charter amounted to a modest bill of rights for developing countries, which aimed

to increase the capacities of these states to pursue development. The underlying premise of

the Charter came under concerted attack since the late 1970s and particularly since the

beginnings of the Third World debt crisis. International financial institutions (IFIs) – the

International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as other regional development banks

– provided fresh loans to help developing countries avoid default on their international

financial obligations, but attached conditions to these loans that significantly reduced the

capacities of states in the developing world. Under the duress of the debt crisis, developing

countries agreed to these conditions. Numerous policy makers in the developing world – and

certainly in the IFIs and the developed world - thought that limiting the power of the state

through the removal of state imposed obstacles to market forces would spur economic growth.

The debate on the role of the state shifted from the idea of an activist state directing the

process of development to the concept of effective governance, which stressed reducing

corruption, demonstrating fiscal restraint, maintaining the rule of law, establishing conditions

of macro-economic stability, and investing health and educational services that would improve

the productivity of the native work force. In short, good governance was oriented toward

creating conditions for market led economic growth in which developing countries would

pursue development by means of integration into the global economy.

For more than three decades, we have been living within the paradigm of market led growth

and effective governance. The record of achievement for this model of development has been

decidedly mixed. Some developing countries experienced state failure. In others, left of center

political coalitions have repudiated market centered conceptions of development. Still other

countries have achieved relatively high rates of economic growth. In recent years, the leaders

of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have moderated their earlier views on

the role of the state in development. As a result of these developmental outcomes and

changing views, the current moment seems like a propitious time to review the ideas of the

past. In particular, in light of all of the development experiences of the past half century, how

might the Charter on the Economic Rights and Duties of States be re-written? Are there any

points of consensus that this committee can reach on what, in 2014, might constitute the

economic rights and duties of states? If such a consensus exists, it could become a powerful

foundation of international trade, environmental and security agreements that can help to

advance the goals of the United Nations in the 21st century. In approaching this topic,

delegates should consider the importance of reaching a consensus that would accommodate

the interests of as many states as possible. One of the difficulties of the 1974 Charter, after all,

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is that it was only a reflection of the interests of the developing countries. It did not, as a result,

gain widespread acceptance.

4. International Security Committee (1)

Cyber-war and Peace

Issues of cyber security and peace have become increasingly prominent as more and more

aspects of the world become organized virtually. The virtual world – or cyber space – has

become the setting in which numerous critical infrastructures vital to the operation of

contemporary societies are located. These technological developments create new issues of

cybersecurity. With the attacks of 9/11, security analysts were lead to proclaim the end of any

strong linkage between distance and security. Deadly attacks could be orchestrated from

anywhere and delivered, through the infrastructures of globalization, directly to the territories

of targeted states. With cybersecurity, these threats have become more profound. For the

9/11 attackers, airlines and information technologies comprised the media though which the

assault was perpetrated. Today, the internet itself, as the organizational structure of modern

societies, has become a vast and nebulous frontier that states must somehow secure.

This new security situation might be read as an ultimate vindication of political realism in the

face of economic interdependence. Deepening economic interdependence was supposed to

create for borderless world of prosperity enhancing flows of goods, information, money,

people, ideas and technology. Interstate conflict would dissipate as states became enmeshed

within deepening forms of economic and environmental interdependence. And as this

occurred, war would become increasingly outmoded as an instrument of statecraft. Of course,

we have heard all of this before. In 1913, Norman Angell published, to widespread claim, The

Future of an Illusion that heralded the end of war. A year later, World War One commenced.

The lesson here is clear: we must not let the advance of economic interdependence – fueled

now by advances in information technologies – lull us into a false sense of security.

With all of these points in mind, it is fortunate that the United Nations has begun to take steps

toward formulating comprehensive agreements cybersecurity. On June 7, 2013, a group of

experts appointed by Secretary General Ban Ki Moon from 15 different countries agreed to

carry out of mandate from the UN General Assembly to “study possible cooperative measures

in addressing existing and potential threats” related to the use of ICTs (Information and

Computer Technologies).12 This willingness to address issues of cyber-security must be

understood against the backdrop of a number of important recent trends and developments.

More than 40 states have developed some cyber-military capacities with a dozen states the

12

Detlev Wolder, “The UN Takes a Big Step Forward on Cybersecurity,” The Arms Control Association, September 2013 (accessed at http://www.armscontrol.org/print/5927)

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 8

creating offensive cyber-capabilities. But potential for a widespread cyber security dilemma

now clearly exists. In particular, capabilities development on the part of one or more states is

likely to make other states insecure and stimulate capabilities development on their part – the

world, in short, could slide into a cyber-arms race. It is encouraging, in this context, that Russia

and the United States recently agreed to the development of confidence building measures in

the cyber-domain. It is likewise commendable that China and the United States have

established a bilateral working group on cyber security.

But even in light of these agreements, cyber-security is difficult to achieve on account of the

fact that practically all ICTs are dual use technologies – they can be used for both peaceful and

bellicose purposes. Additionally, it can be difficult to establish responsibility for cyber-attacks.

Indeed, part of these attacks can be the attribution of aggression to groups or states that did

not, in fact, perpetrate them. The difficulty of attribution emerges very clearly when considers

the global connectivity of ICTs.

It might be helpful here to draw a parallel with nuclear non-proliferation. With non-

proliferation, one has a regime that consists of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the International

Atomic Energy Agency as a watchdog to ensure compliance with the treaty, and the UN Security

Council as an enforcement agency capable to imposing sanctions on states that engage in

proliferation. Is it possible to imagine a cyber-security regime structured along similar lines?

More generally, what kind of legal framework can states negotiate in order to ensure that

people around the world can benefit from peaceful uses of ICTs without being exposed to the

dangers associated with the aggressive use of these technologies. Formulating such a

framework is the principle challenge facing the members of this committee.

5. Disarmament and Security Committee (2)

Banning the Use of Unconventional Weapons of Mass Destruction

The provocation for this agenda item was the use of chemical weapons by the government of

Syria on August 21, 2013. Under pressure from the United States, which wanted to engage in

punitive air strikes aimed destroying Syria’s future capacity to deploy chemical weapons, the

government of Syria agreed to allow international weapons inspectors to find and dismantle

Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons and to the ship the components of these weapons

systems abroad where they will be destroyed. These measures were, in many respects,

vindications of international agreements, including the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1993

Chemical Weapons Convention: the former outlaws the use while the latter prohibits the

development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention or transfer of these weapons.

Even so, Syria’s decision of use chemical weapons is a cause for deep concern. The Chemical

Weapons Convention could, of course, be further strengthened if the United States and Russia

would comply with their legal obligations to destroy their own stockpiles of chemical weapons

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in accordance with the deadlines established by this convention. However, Syria’s deployment

of these weapons speaks to the growing severity of interstate conflict in the Middle East. This

is a point we will return to below.

There has always been a close tie between conflict, insecurity and the development of weapons

of mass destruction. One of the central tenets of the political realism in study of International

Relations (IR) is that all states seek to secure their survival. The international system is a self-

help system, the realists argue. States have to help themselves through the development of

military capabilities and the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is a powerful

instrument with to secure this goal of survival. Of course the result of WMD proliferation is to

create what IR scholars term the security dilemma, which is occurs when the efforts of one

state to make itself secure makes other states insecure and thereby engender arms races. With

respect to WMD proliferation, the security dilemma implies that the efforts of one state to

acquire WMD will set off chain reactions of proliferation. There are some scholars who take a

sanguine attitude toward these developments by suggesting that such chain reactions of WMD

proliferation create situations of strategic security, similar to the relationship of Mutually

Assured Destruction (MAD) that was thought to exist between the United States and the Soviet

Union during the cold war.13 The doctrine of MAD assumed that each side would have

counterstrike capacity even after an initial attack and could launch a counter strike. This

counterstrike capacity would rationally deter an initial first strike.

But it is important to question the premise of rationality that informs these arguments. The

general thought here is that states are rational. This means that states are conceptualized as

monolithic entities that have singular intentions and that they can calculate the utility of

alternative courses of action on the basis of these intentions. Such a conception of the state

can be dangerously misleading. What is misses is the contingent nature of the organizational

process and bureaucratic politics.14 Organization process centers on standard operating

processes through state bureaucracies establish and carry out their policies. Many of the

17,000 nuclear weapons that exist in the world today are, from the point of view of

organizational process, on high alert, ready to be deployed within minutes. The organizational

processes of the states are not infallible.15 There have been false alarms that have led to the

13

For a recent statement of this position applied to the issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, see Kenneth Waltz, “Why Iran Should get the Bomb,” Foreign Affairs, July-August, 2012. Accessed at http://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/IRBr/pt-br/file/CAD/LXII%20CAD/Pol%C3%ADtica/Why%20Iran%20Should%20Get%20the%20Bomb.pdf 14

For a classic organizational process and bureaucratic politics, see Graham Allison, “Conceptual Models of the Cuban Missile Crisis, American Political Science Review, Vol. 63, No. 3, September, 1969. Accessed at http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~lorenzo/Allison%20Conceptual%20Models.pdf 15

Eric Schossler has written recently near nuclear catastrophes in his new book, Command and Control. This is lengthy text. An introduction to it can found with Walter Russell Mead’s review of this this book, “Atomic Gaffes,”

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 10

near deployment of nuclear weapons. From the point of view of bureaucratic politics, state

policies are not so much the product of rational choice, but resultants of political conflict within

the state. Different actors within the state are tied to different bureaucratic and mass

constituencies. They are engaged in an ongoing struggle for power that can sometimes

overwhelm the institutional structures that are designed to regulate power struggles. There

are also moments when political leaders and their advisers can be caught up in the pathologies

of “groupthink” and come to believe uncritically in their own policy arguments.16 These are all

factors that can lead states to behave irrationally. They should be sufficient to make us doubt

the notion that nuclear proliferation can engender peace by creating situations of strategic

stability.

On the basis of these arguments, one is led to advocate the banning of weapons of mass

destruction, including nuclear weapons. But if such bans are to take effect, then the root

causes of proliferation have to be addressed and these consist of the pervasive insecurity that

characterizes the current international political system. States can – and indeed have –

engaged in security cooperation in order to overcome these insecurities. There are several

important forms of security cooperation in which states can engage in order to eliminate

WMDs.

Note here that this topic calls for banning the use of WMDs. Precisely because deterrence is

problematic – for reasons discussed above – bans on the use of nuclear weapons must entail

bans on their existence. To the extent the WMDs exist, then the security dilemma between

states will be activated and proliferation will ensue. This is why no use must also entail no

existence.

The path to banning the existence of nuclear weapons and WMD is already well established. It

requires states to find ways to strengthen the different components of the nuclear proliferation

regime, which include the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the operation of the International Atomic

Energy Agency and the capacity of the Security Council to enforce the terms of the Non-

Proliferation Treaty. The Non-Proliferation regime needs, above all, to be made more

equitable. Nuclear governance must consist of rules that are applied to all states. This includes

dismantling Israel’s nuclear weapons capabilities, establishing non-discriminatory standards on

uranium enrichment, creating more nuclear free weapons zones, particularly in the Middle

East, enhancing the inspections capacities of the IAEA in order to ensure that all states are in

New York Times, September 12, 2013. Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/command-and-control-by-eric-schlosser.html 16

For a discussion the groupthink thesis in American Foreign Policy, see Irving Janis, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, New York: Houghton Mifflin (1982). See also the website “What is Groupthink?” which can be accessed at http://www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 11

compliance with the non-proliferation strategy, and accelerating nuclear disarmament among

the major nuclear powers, particular the US and Russia. Indeed, rapid disarmament on the part

of the superpowers was a main tenet of the Non-Proliferation Treaty when it was first

negotiated in 1969. It was this commitment that served to legitimate the demand that the non-

nuclear powers abstain from the development of nuclear weapons. Finally, delegates might

consider the importance of linking nuclear disarmament with disarmament in the areas of

chemical and biological weapons. Chemical and biological weapons are a way that poorer

counties – like Syria, for instance – can acquire WMD capacity. The point here is simply that

disarmament from above – between the great powers – can help to engender momentum for

disarmament from below.

Of course, delegates should take these arguments with a grain of salt as their position must

ultimately reflect their state’s interests. The question is: can state interests be pursued by

means of security cooperation rather than security competition?

6. UN Commission on Sustainable Development

Climate Change in an Era of Energy Abundance

Climate change is a serious threat to the future of human civilization. It is truly puzzling to

observe the risk tolerance of states – and their political and economic elites – toward climate

change as compared with their risk intolerance for terrorism, a much smaller and manageable

issue. Risk tolerance for climate change is becoming more deeply entrenched as a result of the

new abundance of fossil fuels brought into being as the advent for fracking and through the

extraction of what author Michael Klare terms “extreme energy” in Venezuela, Canada, the

Arctic, and buried deep below sea beds in different regions of the world.17 Extreme energy is

more expensive to process – requiring greater inputs of energy to process. The new energy

abundance also consists of bountiful supplies of the coal in United States, China and other

countries. In 1972, the Club of Rome published its seminal work, the Limits to Growth, which

argued the finite supplies of the non-renewable resources posed limits to economic growth.

But in the case of fossil fuels, these limits have not yet emerged and it seems clear that the

limits to growth with respect to fossil fuels is not well calibrated with the need to reduce

emissions of greenhouse gases, which is the primary driving force of climate change.

One can certainly imagine a scenario in which growing scarcities of fossil fuels would lead to

dramatically increased prices and thus set into the motion a price signal that would encourage

the development of the renewable energy resources that would replace fossil fuel

17

For discussion see Michael Klare, “Extreme Energy Means an Extreme Planet,” TomDispatch, October 4, 2012 (accessed at http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175601/tomgram%3A_michael_klare,_extreme_energy_means_an_extreme_planet/)

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consumption. Instead, we are faced with a scenario in which reductions in greenhouse gases

must be accomplished by means of refraining from consuming existing supplies of fossil fuels.

This restraint is economically problematic given the efficiencies associated with different

sources of energy. Renewables are still far less efficient and therefore far more expensive to

produce than non-renewable sources of energy.18 These differential costs have led some

analysts to conclude that the appropriate response to climate change is simply to burn fossil

fuels and use the resources generated by fossil fuel driven growth to mitigate the damages

engendered by climate change. One proponent of this perspective is Manhattan Institute

scholar Peter Huber, who argues that while CO2 emissions reductions are thinkable for

denizens of the wealthy world, it is inconceivable that the world’s five billion or so poor people

would abstain from burning fossil fuels in their quest to escape poverty through economic

growth. From Huber’s point of view, massive fossil fuel consumption is inevitable and the only

sensible response to it is to implement equally massive policies of carbon sequestration in

order to keep all these carbon dioxides out the atmosphere.19

Eduardo Porter of the New York Times argues for increasing investments in nuclear power

plants, noting that energy produced by nuclear power plants is just as cost efficient (in terms of

dollars per megawatt hour) as power produced from coal fire plants. Moreover, suggests

Porter, the dangers of nuclear power have been overstated. In the wake of the shutdown of

the Fukushima power plants in Japan – the result of an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 –

governments in Germany and Japan have made plans to shut down their existing nuclear

facilities. At the same time, however, both Germany and Japan have missed their CO2

emissions reductions targets and the move away of from nuclear energy will make these targets

far more difficult to reach in the future. From all of this, it follows, rather plainly, that states

should develop nuclear power as the most economically viable substitute to fossil fuels. To

Porter and Huber’s views on how to respond to climate change, we might add various proposals

on geo-engineering which focus on how to modify the global climate so that it warms less

rapidly.20

What all of these proposals have in common is a refusal to consider any far reaching

modifications to existing ways of life which might require people to consume less or, even more

radically, mandate the creation of the steady state economies that are not organized around

18

On this point, see Eduardo Porter, “Unavoidable Answer for the Problem of Climate Change,” New York Times, November 19, 2013 (accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/business/economy/unavoidable-answer-to-problem-of-climate-change.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&ref=eduardoporter&adxnnlx=1385132946-3AuBVTc/NOIPTOtGiDMuTg&pagewanted=print). 19

For discussion, see Peter Huber, “Capturing Carbon is our only Answer” Dallas Morning News, May 8, 2009 (accessed at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=4534) 20

For a debate on geo-engineering, see Democracy Now, “Can We Save the Planet by Messing with Nature,” May 20, 2013. Accessed at http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/20/geoengineering_can_we_save_the_planet

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 13

the presupposition of continuous economic growth as a basis of economic well-being and

political stability. Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows-Larkin of the Tyndall Centre for Climate

Change Research in England argue that the rapidity and scale of climate change require the

implementation of radical de-growth strategies immediately in order to avert the dangers of

runaway climate change.21

With elite resistance to responding to climate change anchored firmly into place, however,

Michael Klare argues that green revolutions staged by ordinary citizens outraged by

environmental degradation will serve as the political catalyst of environmental change.22 Klare

examines the emergence of powerful environmental protests movements in Turkey, China,

Japan and Germany. The environmental disasters are associated with climate change are only

going to grow more severe over time and, as they do, it is conceivable that a politics of survival

with displace the politics of growth. If political leaders are attentive to where current trends

are taking them (and their constituents), they might respond to climate change through a

politics of survival. Naomi Klein has offered an outline of an agenda for change oriented toward

a politics of survival might look like, including 1) reviving the public sphere, 2) remembering

how to plan; 3) reigning in corporations; 4) re-localizing production; 5) ending the cult of

shopping and 6) taxing the rich and filthy.23

So should a politics of survival displace a politics of growth? Is it realistic to conceive of future

trajectories of development that are not carbon intensive? Should nuclear power be embraced

as the best substitute for fossil fuels? These are the questions that confront the world as we

contemplate climate change in an era of energy abundance.

7. Social and Humanitarian Committee

Meeting the Needs of Refugees

The world is experiencing its most severe refugee crisis in 20 years. In its Global Trends report

the United Nations Refugee Agency reports that more than 45.2 million people were displaced

by the end of 2012, of which 15.4 million were refugees, 937,000 were asylum seekers and 28.8

21

See “"We Have to Consume Less": Scientists Call For Radical Economic Overhaul to Avert Climate Crisis,” Democracy Now, November 21, 2013 (accessed at http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/21/we_have_to_consume_less_scientists) 22

See Michael Klare, “Surviving Climate Change: Is a Green Energy Revolution on the Global Agenda?” TomDispatch, November 17, 2013 (accessed at http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175773/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_a_climate_change-fueled_revolution) 23

For discussion, see Naomi Klein, “Capitalism vs. Climate,” The Nation, November 9, 2011 (accessed at http://www.thenation.com/print/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate).

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 14

million internally displaced persons.24 The geographic profile of the refugee crisis is centered

on Africa, the Middle East – Syria, in particular – and Afghanistan. The delegates to this

committee are asked to deliberate on the needs of burgeoning refugee populations. There are

several needs that can be considered here. The first is security. Refugees have experienced

traumatic insecurity. As the American Refugee Committee observes, “When a refugee is forced

to leave their home, they often leave all their belongings behind. They walk dozens of miles to

safety. If they arrive safely at their destination, they are still without food, water, shelter or

medical care. And there is no guarantee that they will be able to stay.”25 The New York Times

recently recounted the experiences of Zarkaria Deeb, a Syrian refugee who traveled with his

family on the rumor that he and his family would be allowed to stay at a refugee camp in the

town of Dillis, Turkey. But the camp is now full and the Deebs, with hundreds of other Syrian

families, are encamped “on a gravel strewn field across from the camps, sleeping under plastic

sheets hanging from the branch of a Cypress Tree.”26 The Deebs are certainly better off that

many internally displaced refugees (or IDPs for Internally Displaced Peoples) within the Syria

who are living in the midst of the war zone, with little access to humanitarian relief. Many of

these groups are facing dire threats to their survival.

Turkey, the host country for the Deebs, is sheltering more than 200,000 refugees in 21 camps.

400,000 more refugees are living in Turkish communities and many have exhausted their

savings. Turkish officials find themselves caught in the dilemma of either providing good

services and attracting more refugees or diminishing to quality of its services and risk being

labeled as a state that does not live up to its humanitarian responsibilities. Because of the

protracted character of the conflict, many refugees are attempting to settle in Turkish society.27

Many of these refugees are of middle class origin are seeking to learn Turkish and be licensed

to practice their professions in Turkey and there are some foreign aid projects that are funding

language and education centers that can assist refugees in the process of resettlement.

As this sketch of the refugee crisis in Syria suggests, there are different kinds of refugees and

these groups have different kinds of needs. Internally displaced peoples living in the midst of

armed conflict some need form of humanitarian protection. The UN response to the crisis in

24

These figures are drawn from Mark Tran, “UN warns of worse refugee crisis in nearly 20 years,” The Guardian, June 19, 2013. Accessed at http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/jun/19/refugee-crisis-world-worst-united-nations 25

This quote appears on the website of the American Refugee Committee, which can be accessed at http://www.arcrelief.org/site/PageServer?pagename=learn_globalrefugeecrisis 26

Norimitsu Onishi, “Syria See as Most Dire Refugee Crisis in a Generation,” New York Times, November 23, 2013. Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/world/middleeast/syria-seen-as-most-dire-refugee-crisis-in-a-generation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. 27

Norimitsu Onishi, “Syria See as Most Dire Refugee Crisis in a Generation,” New York Times, November 23, 2013. Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/world/middleeast/syria-seen-as-most-dire-refugee-crisis-in-a-generation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 15

the former Yugoslavia provides an example of how these protections might be provided. In

that conflict, UN peacekeepers were deployed to maintain safe havens for besieged

populations and maintain humanitarian corridors through which such supplies could be

delivered. In the Yugoslavian experience, both the humanitarian corridors and safe havens

were subject to lethal forms of harassment. Members of the UN Security Council are now

considering implementing similar policies, but how can they manage to insulate these

protected areas from the armed conflicts raging around them? One policy to consider is to

deploy peace makers with robust rules of engagement through which they can militarily deter

forces that threaten the mission.

Another crucial resource to address needs of IDPs has recently been developed in Africa. In

December of 2013, African states signed the Kampala convention28, which provides legal

protections to IDPs from their governments. As Mark Tran of the Guardian points out, “Under

the convention, governments must gather data and identify IDPs to understand where they are

and what they need, provide personal identification documents, trace families, help reunite

them and consult IDPs in decisions on their needs.”29 The provisions of this convention are

certainly well intended, but in order to carry out the terms of the Kampala convention, African

states are going to need capacity building foreign aid from developed countries. Delegates on

this committee might consider the ways in which this aid can be most effectively designed and

delivered so that it meets the objectives of the Kampala convention.

Meeting the needs of refugees might also entail addressing the causes of conflict in regions that

have produced high numbers of refugees. One idea to consider here are the effects of

“blowback”.30 Blowback consists of the unintended consequence that flow from previous

military interventions. Afghanistan is, in many respects, the homeland of contemporary

blowback. In response to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the US and Saudi Arabia

provided aid to groups resisting the Soviet occupation. Among these groups were Arab

Jihadists, drawn to Afghanistan in order to engage in the defense of Islam. Al Qaeda emerged

within this milieu, established relations with Taliban, and organized the 9/11 attacks. 9/11, in

this sense, is blowback. A similar argument might be made about the US intervention in Libya

that deposed the Qaddafi regime but then led to the destabilization of neighboring Mali as

28

For more background on the Kampala Convention visit the website of the Internally Displaced Monitoring Center, which can be accessed at http://www.internal-displacement.org/kampala-convention. 29

Mark Tran, “UN warns of worse refugee crisis in nearly 20 years,” The Guardian, June 19, 2013. Accessed at http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/jun/19/refugee-crisis-world-worst-united-nations 30

For a discussion of the relationship between US military intervention and blowback in Africa, see Nick Turse, “The Terror Diaspora,” TomDispatch, June 13, 2013. Accessed at http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/.

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 16

fighters affiliated by Al Qaeda seized control of the region in 2012.31 Greater anticipation of the

unintended consequences of military interventions needs to be built into the policies

interventionist states (like the US).

Countries accepting large volumes of the refugees are also in need to aid. Turkey, Iraq, Jordan

and Lebanon have absorbed high numbers of refugees who, because of the protracted conflict

in Syria, have no prospect of returning to the native country any time soon. The conflict that

drove refugees abroad tends to follow them there. In some cases, this is because the refugees

continue to participate in the armed conflict. In other cases, it is because refugee camps are

the targets of belligerent forces. Host countries need more support to maintain security for

both their refugees and for their own populations, who are exposed to new security risks

because of the refugee crisis. Delegates on this committee should explore the ways in which

this aid can be provided.

Finally, developed countries can assist countries on the frontlines of the refugee crisis by being

willing to accept higher numbers of refugees themselves. As this brief review of the topic

suggests, the global refugee crisis is a multifaceted process. As delegates, you may attempt to

develop omnibus resolutions that address different aspects of the issue for formulate separate

resolution that examine specific aspects of the problem. Either way, this is a topic that should

keep you busy throughout the duration of the conference.

8. Special Legal and Political Committee

Debate on the Future of Peace Operations

Peacekeeping is an extraordinarily important function of the United Nations. But it has to

adapt to changing forms of political violence in the world. War used to be fought between

states by uniformed armed forces whose activities were, to some extent, governed by the laws

of war formulated at the Hague and Geneva Conventions. Most casualties were suffered by

uniformed soldiers rather than civilians. The classical paradigm of Peacekeeping deployed by

the United Nations in the post-World War Two period was, in many respects, an adaption to

this model of warfare. It involved the deployment of lightly armed UN peacekeepers, at the

request of belligerents, intervening in order to oversee troop withdrawals, guard disputed

borders and, more generally, reduce the tensions that led to armed conflict so that peace

instead of war could prevail. In the post-colonial regions of the world (i.e., Latin America, Asia,

Africa and the Middle East), violent conflict has moved inward: over the course of the past half

century, most violent conflict has been within states, waged only in part by the uniformed

soldiers of the state in question and, increasingly, by informally organized militias. The target of

31

For a discussion of unrest in Mali as a result of US intervention in Libya, see Stephen Zunes, “Blowback in Mali: More to Come?” Foreign Policy in Focus, February 1, 2013. Accessed at http://fpif.org/the_mali_blowback_more_to_come/

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 17

armed attacks are not the military forces of another state, but civilians. As analyst Mary Kaldor

has argued, these attacks are carried out in order to claim territory in the name of a particular

identity.32

The civil war in the former Yugoslavia is an instructive example of this sort of conflict. Under

communist rule, Yugoslavia had emerged from a history of ethnic violence to become a

relatively stable multinational state. With the chronic economic crises that accompanied the

disintegration of communist, Yugoslavia’s different national republics seceded, beginning with

the Croatia and then Slovenia. Within Serbia, ethnic militias began to form under the direction

of the nationalist president Slobodan Milosevic. With the collapse of communism, Milosevic –

pursued the goals of establishing a greater Serbia, which would be accomplished by uniting all

Serbian occupied territories under the rule of a Serbian state. Milosevic and other Serb

nationalists sought to establish an ethnically exclusive state, a policy that involved reviving old

ethnic hatreds and using these as the ideological basis for policies of ethnic cleansing. Such

policies became centered in the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The worse of the violence

occurred in the period 1992-5. The UN responded with the deployment of peacekeeping

troops, recruited mainly from European member states, who sought to establish safe havens

for civilians under assault from Serbian ethnic militias. The safe havens were linked by

humanitarian corridors through which peacekeepers sought to deliver relief supplies to

beleaguered populations. Supply convoys were regularly attacked by the ethnic militias and

save havens were periodically overrun. These latter attacks culminated with an assault on the

city of Srebrenica in which Serb forces executed 6,000 civilians. This assault demonstrated the

weakness of the UN peacekeeping forces. For this mission, they had been given limited rules of

engagement that prohibited them from attacking ethnic militias. These limited rules of

engagement were undoubtedly a reflection of the interests of the P-5, particularly Russia,

which aligned itself with the Serbians. After Srebrenica, NATO intervened more forcefully in the

conflict, bombing Serbian positions and inducing peace talks that led to a settlement of the

conflict.

This story of Bosnia-Herzegovina is, no doubt, an old one: we are talking about events that

happened twenty years ago. The lessons of the conflict are still relevant to the way in which

UN Peacekeeping Operations should be conceptualized and managed in today’s world. We live,

after all, in a world of pervasive state failure. Post-colonial states were formed with territorial

borders dictated by the colonial powers. These states contain multiple ethnic and sectarian

groups. And often different ethnic and sectarian identities were mobilized in by the colonial

powers in order to orchestrate colonial rule. This has established deep ethnic and sectarian

32

See Mary Kaldor, New Wars, Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, Stanford University Press (Second Edition), 2007. Kaldor also writes regularly on human security issues for the British news and analysis website, Open Democracy.

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 18

animosities that have persisted into the present. These simmering conflicts combined with

environmental degradation, rapid population growth, chronic economic instability and crisis

and corrupt governance, often by ethnic and sectarian groups committed to maintaining

positions of social, economic and political domination, have led to widespread the state failure.

State failure may be conceptualized as state formation in reverse. Instead of the centralization

of the political authority in a state that is able to maintain a monopoly over the legitimate use

of force within its territory (to cite the classic definition of the state given by Max Weber), state

failure has witnessed the diffusion of the violence to different regional groups. As this has

occurred, the exercise of violence has become increasingly lawless. In these sorts of situations,

the central features of classical peacekeeping no longer apply. This is simply not a context in

which lightly armed peacekeepers with limited rules of engagement deployed at the behest of

belligerents who want to cease hostilities can achieve anything useful. The UN officials have

been aware of this problem for quite some time and have floated proposals for more robust

peacemaking. But peacemaking activities – that is, making peace is a context wracked by

violent conflict – have remained very limited.

A significant departure from this pattern has come very recently in the form Security Council

Resolution 2098 which provided the UN Peacekeeping Mission deployed in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) with the authority to carry out “targeted offensive

operations” and assume “the responsibility of neutralizing armed groups.”33 Commenting on

these new developments in UN Peacekeeping, the Michael Howard of the British Royal Air

Force, remarks that “traditional peacekeeping approaches are under the microscope…there is

an urgent need for states to further develop their peacekeeping capabilities in order to be able

to carry out more challenging missions.” If member states refuse to take of this challenge, then

“it is as if we dress like firefighters but no not actually attend fires for fear of getting burned”

with the result that groups “who commit wanton acts of violence feel they can act with

impunity.”34 In this regard, it is encouraging to note that the intervention brigade deployed by

Security Council Resolution 2098 has achieved several battlefield successes over the course of

2013.35

This new and important development can be understood in the context of the “New Horizon”

process through which the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations is 33

For discussion of the new UN peace keeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, see the minutes of the 6943

rd meeting of the Security Council, March 28, 2013. These minutes can be accessed at

https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2013/sc10964.doc.htm 34

UNA-UK, “Michael Howard Considers the Future Evolution of Peacekeeping,” New World, October 22, 2013. Accessed at http://www.una.org.uk/magazine/autumn-2013/michael-harwood-considers-future-evolution-un-peacekeeping 35

For discussion of this point, see The Washington Post, “A UN Peacekeeping Mission Filled with Promise,” November 22, 2013. Accessed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/from-congo-a-un-peacekeeping-mission-filled-with-promise/2013/11/22/df1b33b0-514f-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 19

seeking to reassess its peacekeeping operations through policy development, capability

development, global field support strategy and the planning and oversight.36 Delegates in this

committee should explore the various problems and issues associated with UN peacekeeping,

some of which have been touched upon above, and develop proposals for more effective

peacekeeping operations in a world that sorely needs them.

9. United Nations Development Program (written by FGCU Student Tanner Stenning)

The Debate on Poverty Alleviation: is poverty in the global South decreasing? In

what ways? With what policy implications?

A 2013 U.N study reported that global poverty—measured using new parameters—is on the

decline. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (hereafter MPI) is a measure of poverty that is

based on a multitude of factors that measure human wellbeing put forth by the Oxford Poverty

& Human Development Initiative.37 Poverty, in the context of these measurements, is given a

definition that takes into consideration a number of social, economic, and psychological factors

and a calculation of poverty crucially involves a measurement of conditions such as: nutrition,

child mortality, years of schooling and attendance, cooking fuel, water, sanitation, electricity,

assets and a covered floor. Many foreign countries—such as Mexico, Colombia, and Bhutan—

have adopted national MPI measures, incorporating them into considerations of law and public

policy. The study suggests that if we remain committed to the current policies and programs in

place, “acute poverty,” as it’s called, may be eradicated within 20 years.38 One would be keen

to look, then, at what constitutes the status quo as it relates to strategies regarding poverty

reduction.

At the forefront of the poverty reduction project is the United Nations, and a multilateral effort

to tackle poverty has historically involved a number of international institutions. Beginning

roughly in the 1980s, a new economic philosophy had gripped the West based out of

Washington—neoliberalism. Neoliberalism espouses number of policies by which countries in

the global South might pull themselves out of poverty, namely through deregulation, mass

privatization, fiscal austerity, free trade, and openness to foreign direct investment. Many Latin

American countries were experiencing debt crises, and loans offered by the IMF and the World

Bank appeared to be a way out. Attached to these loans were conditions that the debtor

countries reform their economies and institute neo-liberal policies—policies that were believed

36

United Nations Peacekeeping, “The ‘New Horizon’ Process,” No Date, Accessed at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/newhorizon.shtml. This website contains numerous documents that explore the various issues involved in the current re-thinking of UN peacekeeping. 37

Oxford Poverty & Human Development, Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2013 http://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/The-Global-MPI-2013-2-pager.pdf?7ff332 38

Tracey McVeigh, “World poverty is shrinking rapidly, new index reveals,” March 16, 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/17/aid-trade-reduce-acute-poverty

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 20

to be the key to reducing poverty. The World Bank and the IMF explicitly made it their goal to

eradicate poverty. An inscription atop an inside wall of the entrance of the World Bank reads:

“We have a dream—a world free of poverty.”39 The results are documented—massive

concentrations of wealth and huge pockets of poverty, and in many cases, poverty made worse

by inequality.

The policies and programs in place today are largely a product of the neoliberal ideology, which

has also come to be known as the Washington Consensus—core economic and political

principles that serve as the basis for the organization of global society using international

institutions (IMF and World Bank).40 Neoliberalism in the era of globalization has given us a

particular perspective on poverty. Neoliberalism is often described as contemporary capitalism,

and capitalism historically has focused on the creation of wealth, or value. The neoliberal

project attempts to tackle poverty reduction by rendering poverty as merely an absence of

wealth. This perspective—rather than viewing poverty as a socioeconomic condition involving a

multiplicity of forces, parameters, and measurements as defined by the MPI—focuses on

solutions that target the creation of wealth, not the reduction of poverty. Neoliberals allege

that by doing so, prosperity will trickle down to the poorest sectors of society. This theory is

known as “supply-side economics,” and a notable proponent of this theory was President

Reagan, perhaps the most prominent neoliberal. Its adherents contend that poverty is a natural

condition of the world, and to seek to eradicate poverty through means other than by wealth

creation is ineffective. Traditional policies aimed at reducing poverty through government

intervention—such as stimulus and redistribution—do little to ultimately deal with the issue of

poverty if such action isn’t coupled with movements for wealth creation, and the neoliberal

policies of Washington purport to do just that.

Should we accept the UN definition of poverty as composed of a number of socioeconomic

conditions spelled out by the MPI, or should we accept the neoliberal conception of poverty? Is

it possible perhaps that poverty reduction can be pursued independent of wealth creation?

Furthermore, can we uncouple wealth (or income) from measures of poverty? Is it really the

case that poverty is a natural condition of the world and efforts on the parts of governments

and international institutions to alleviate poverty ultimately fail if they do not address the

domain of wealth and income? On the basis of these very general conceptions of poverty, what

strategies for poverty alleviation should be adopted?

39

Francois Houtart, Neoliberalism and Poverty, September 2005 http://www.spokesmanbooks.com/Spokesman/PDF/88Houtart.pdf 40

You can read more about the ‘Washington Consensus’ by reading this article by scholar and economist Joseph Stiglitz: http://policydialogue.org/files/events/Stiglitz_Post_Washington_Consensus_Paper.pdf

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 21

10. Legal Committee

Global Tax Evasion

Global tax evasion is, quite straightforwardly, a consequence of globalization. This is so in at

least two different ways. In the first place, transnational corporations have set up complex

networks of subsidiaries through which they organize their global operations. They frequently

in engage in a practice known as transfer pricing where they shift profits to the low tax havens

within their network of subsidiaries into order to the lower their tax burdens. States are

complicit in this process. Many less developed states are eager to attract foreign direct

investment from transnational corporations and offer lax tax and regulatory environments as

an inducement to these corporations. Andrew Kramer and the Floyd Norris of the New York

Times, note, for example, the “Ireland has encouraged multinational corporations life Google,

Facebook, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson and Citigroup to set up shop the provide good jobs in

return for helping these companies pay less taxes around the world.”41 Ireland’s Department of

Finance responded to these charges by pointing out that is policies are made possible by tax

loopholes granted to corporations in the rich countries and by the lack of uniformity in

international taxation standards. Tax policies are, quite obviously, an arena where

international harmonization of the tax policies would be beneficial. We live, after all, in a

world of growing economic inequalities and diminished state services. Governments around the

world are embracing fiscal austerity and neglecting needed investments in health, education,

infrastructure and research – all of which would serve to advance human well-being. Cracking

down on global tax evasion is one way increase the revenues that states have at their disposal

and to reduce the damaging impact of fiscal austerity.

The transfer pricing practices of corporations are only part of the problem. Also of concern is

the capacity of the wealthy individuals to move their wealth into offshore banking havens. In

2012 and 2013, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists carried out a 15 month

investigation of off shore tax havens. The consortium leaked a huge trove of documents (160

times larger than WikiLeaks’ cache turned over by the now incarcerated private Bradley

Manning) that illustrate “how offshore financial secrecy had spread aggressively around the

globe, allowing the wealthy and the well connected to dodge taxes and fueling corruption and

economic woes in rich nations and poor nations alike.”42 Banking secrecy rules shield investors

in off shore bank havens from government scrutiny. Often the individuals who benefit from

41

Andrew Krammer and Floyd Norris, “G-20 Back Plan to Cub Tax Avoidance by Large Corporations,” New York Times, July 19, 2013. Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/business/global/g-20-nations-back-plan-to-curb-corporate-tax-evasion.html?_r=0 42

Gerard Ryle, Marina Walker Guevara, Michael Hudson, Nicky Hager, Duncan Campbell and Stefan Candea, “Secret Files Expose Offshore’s Global Impact,” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, April 3, 2013. Accessed at http://www.icij.org/offshore

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 22

these secrecy laws are current and former government officials and members or friends of their

families.43

States have begun to respond to problems of global tax evasion through the Organization of the

Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the G-20. The OECD recently released

what the Guardian newspaper referred to as a damning assessment of the efforts of the 34

OECD countries to curtail illicit financial flows.44 These flows include both money laundering

and tax evasions. The sums involved are staggering: according to the NGO Global Financial

Integrity, illicit financial flows from the developing countries between 2001 to 2008 amounted

to $5.8 trillion dollars. OECD countries also performed poorly on the determining beneficial or

true ownership of companies and on tracking the financial transactions of politically exposed

people – that is, prominent individuals who can abuse their position. With respect to tax

evasion, the OECD reported greater cooperation between OECD states on automatic exchange

of information, but insufficient cooperation between OECD countries and developing countries,

many of who lack the administrative capacity to engage in such exchanges. With regard to

corporate tax evasion, the OECD has proposed 15 new tax principles for corporations – here is

an example of the needed regulatory harmonization mentioned above – which would have the

effect to shifting tax burdens to large corporations who, on account of their resources, have

demonstrated by the greatest capacity to engage in tax evasion.45 Consider, for example, the

Starbucks paid now corporate tax in the United Kingdom in 2012 despite operating 700 stores

there or that Apple, the US’s most profitable technology company, avoided billions in taxes

through its transfer pricing strategies.46

A key global institution for realizing greater global tax justice is the G-20. Ever since the global

financial crisis of 2008, the G-20 has become increasingly prominent as a forum for multilateral

diplomacy oriented toward management of the global economy. The prominent anti-poverty

NGO Oxfam has pressured the G-20 to clamp down on tax dodging, improve tax transparency

and stem illicit financial flows in order to enable states, particularly developing countries, to

invest more in crucial public services and the establish patterns of economic growth in which

43

For details on individual specific individuals associated with off shore banking, see Kimberly Porteus, Michael Hudson and Sasha Chavkin, “Release of Records Draws Worldwide Response,” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, January 13, 2014. Accessed at http://www.icij.org/blog/2013/04/release-offshore-records-draws-worldwide-response 44

Marc Tran, “Rich countries failing to address money laundering and tax evasion,” The Guardian, December 18, 2013. Accessed at http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/18/rich-countries-money-laundering-tax-evasion-oecd 45

For discussion of these principles, see the UPI Press Report, “OECD Proposes that the Group of 20 adopt 15 Tax Principles,” July 19, 2013, accessed at http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2013/07/19/Group-of-20-finance-leaders-considers-corporate-tax-reform/UPI-98541374245844/ 46

Andrew Krammer and Floyd Norris, “G-20 Back Plan to Cub Tax Avoidance by Large Corporations,” New York Times, July 19, 2013. Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/business/global/g-20-nations-back-plan-to-curb-corporate-tax-evasion.html?_r=0

Southwest Florida Model United Nations Topic Guide 2014 23

the benefits of growth reach people who are living in poverty.47 Tax justice is indispensable to

creating this more inclusive pattern of economic growth. Stronger action has to be taken

against corporate and individual tax evasion. Your task as delegates on this committee is to

develop proposals for achieving these objectives. This work should build on and extend the

work of both the OECD and the G-20.

11. United Nations Security Council

Review of International Peace and Security in the Middle East and Persian Gulf

The only instructions for delegates with regard to this topic is to closely follow the new on the

Middle East and Persian Gulf and be ready for some crisis situations that will be based on

unfolding events in these regions of the world.

47

Oxfam Media Briefing, September 5-6, 2013. Accessed at http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/oxfam-g20-media-brief-stpetersburg-5sept2013.pdf