Why We Chose These Topics
Hi delegates!
Hope you all are getting as excited for conference as we are! There are only 27 days left until conference weekend :)
In this blog post, I wanted to talk about why we think these topics are relevant to discuss, and why they're best suited to be carried out in the context of the United Nations.
The Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a region that has has historically been, and remains today, a crossroads of goods, ideas, and people. The region as a whole is usually not talked about in these sorts of settings; usually, committees will focus on either extremist groups (most often Al Shabaab), or interstate conflicts, the most relevant being the Eritrea-Ethiopia border strife.
However, I don't find it to be incredibly enlightening to focus on one specific conflict in an inherently interconnected region. This form of targeted resolution writing may be applicable in other issues; focusing the Eritrean war for independence as a proxy for a Cold War topic, for example. However, I found that generating conclusions about a situation in the HoA only served to further display the close ties each conflict has with the general geopolitical climate of the region.
This is why for the HoA, our committee will be tackling both state and border security of the region, however, we will be using combatting terrorism as our motivating drive to understand state security as a whole. We did this because tackling terrorism in an MUN setting is easier to grasp than all the nuances of state building. We hope to see the committee make connections between the two during discussions and our lectures, and that the resolutions are emblematic of these conclusions.
Open Agenda
For Open Agenda, as always, you'll be allowed to pick whatever topic you want! However, to get you all started, the three we chose were selected because each operates completely different compared to the others; assumptions about how the ruling party in Burundi, the CNDD-FDD, will react to international stimuli won't apply in how the Burmese National government will react in the Rohingya crisis.
The Burundi situation is interesting not because of what we as the SC can do, but what we can't. As a steady state, the UN's Charter's mandate of non-interference holds strong, and and actions we take have to employ more sleight of hand. A focus we want to put on this topic is using pretext as a means of international intervention, for instance, neighboring Rwanda could, in a worst case scenario, send military aid under the pretext of capturing members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FLDR).
The Rohingya Genocide has skyrocketed in relevance this past year, as UN fact-finding reports have deemed the conflict a full-on genocide, condemning the Burmese government in the process. It has also become one the worst external and internal refugee crises in modern history. International intervention is not only authorized, but necessary; only the SC has binding power to have neighboring states aid in dissolving this crisis.
Finally, piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is a topic I find to be relevant just because it takes a typically unimpeded issue, international piracy, and ties it to the economic status of burgeoning maritime region. By employing the rules governed in the UNCLOS and IMO instruments, I hope this committee can understand how effective these powers are, especially when the state of a large part of the world's commercial ecosystem is in the balance.
As always, don't hesitate to post your thoughts in the comments! We love to see discussion in our blogs, and it helps to get to you know your perspectives on these tough issues!
Good luck finalizing your position papers, and drop us an email if you have any questions at all!
Best,
Soham Kale,
Head Chair of UNSC, BMUN LXVII
Hope you all are getting as excited for conference as we are! There are only 27 days left until conference weekend :)
In this blog post, I wanted to talk about why we think these topics are relevant to discuss, and why they're best suited to be carried out in the context of the United Nations.
The Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a region that has has historically been, and remains today, a crossroads of goods, ideas, and people. The region as a whole is usually not talked about in these sorts of settings; usually, committees will focus on either extremist groups (most often Al Shabaab), or interstate conflicts, the most relevant being the Eritrea-Ethiopia border strife.
However, I don't find it to be incredibly enlightening to focus on one specific conflict in an inherently interconnected region. This form of targeted resolution writing may be applicable in other issues; focusing the Eritrean war for independence as a proxy for a Cold War topic, for example. However, I found that generating conclusions about a situation in the HoA only served to further display the close ties each conflict has with the general geopolitical climate of the region.
This is why for the HoA, our committee will be tackling both state and border security of the region, however, we will be using combatting terrorism as our motivating drive to understand state security as a whole. We did this because tackling terrorism in an MUN setting is easier to grasp than all the nuances of state building. We hope to see the committee make connections between the two during discussions and our lectures, and that the resolutions are emblematic of these conclusions.
Open Agenda
For Open Agenda, as always, you'll be allowed to pick whatever topic you want! However, to get you all started, the three we chose were selected because each operates completely different compared to the others; assumptions about how the ruling party in Burundi, the CNDD-FDD, will react to international stimuli won't apply in how the Burmese National government will react in the Rohingya crisis.
The Burundi situation is interesting not because of what we as the SC can do, but what we can't. As a steady state, the UN's Charter's mandate of non-interference holds strong, and and actions we take have to employ more sleight of hand. A focus we want to put on this topic is using pretext as a means of international intervention, for instance, neighboring Rwanda could, in a worst case scenario, send military aid under the pretext of capturing members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FLDR).
The Rohingya Genocide has skyrocketed in relevance this past year, as UN fact-finding reports have deemed the conflict a full-on genocide, condemning the Burmese government in the process. It has also become one the worst external and internal refugee crises in modern history. International intervention is not only authorized, but necessary; only the SC has binding power to have neighboring states aid in dissolving this crisis.
Finally, piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is a topic I find to be relevant just because it takes a typically unimpeded issue, international piracy, and ties it to the economic status of burgeoning maritime region. By employing the rules governed in the UNCLOS and IMO instruments, I hope this committee can understand how effective these powers are, especially when the state of a large part of the world's commercial ecosystem is in the balance.
As always, don't hesitate to post your thoughts in the comments! We love to see discussion in our blogs, and it helps to get to you know your perspectives on these tough issues!
Good luck finalizing your position papers, and drop us an email if you have any questions at all!
Best,
Soham Kale,
Head Chair of UNSC, BMUN LXVII
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