The United Nations and I Have Always Had a Complicated Relationship; I Severely Question

The United Nations and I have always had a complicated relationship; I severely question the effectiveness of the institution to govern and enforce effective policy, yet I also can’t deny its unavoidable symbol of world peace and its ability to finally bring all the nations of the world to one place. This skeptical attitude never made me particularly interested in the Model United Nations. But over the years, I heard so many great stories from friends, and things about how it is an indispensable experience for anyone trying to become a professional of foreign affairs. Seeing I had pretty much had no more requirements to complete my final semester, I thought, why not?

The preparation began fall of 2012, one semester before the class begins. I received multiple emails from Dr. D’Amico about the application, the team, and the deadline. At the time I was a bit busy with other classes so I turned it in as soon as possible just so I would not have to worry about it down the line. I was confident about my application; I was a senior, I have good grades, and I am a member of Sigma Iota Rho, the international relations honors society. Sure enough, a few weeks later I received an email congratulating me on being accepting and there will be a team meeting soon as we prep to represent the Czech Republic. The first team meeting went over the basics of what is Model United Nations and what the national conference in New York City is all about. It was pretty standard material, but I was a bit surprised about how much research they expected from us before the semester. They did not give us anything specific then, but only a warning that we are expected to be well-versed in the Czech Republic by the end of winter break. Sure enough, an email came from the head delegates the first week of winter break with a list of things to get a handle of and what websites to check out. Needless to say, I was not thrilled; I planned my entire winter break around finding a job. I am a senior and the past semester was extremely busy, so this was now my time to finally hammer out dozens of applications and get my job leads going. Researching the Czech Republic was not at the top of my priority list because finding a job after graduation is the whole reason why I am in school. By the last week of break, I finally spent a day or two looking through the Czech websites, eyes glazed over, not really knowing what I am supposed to be retaining here. I learned a few basics, but I might as well not have done any work.

Spring semester arrived. My final semester at Syracuse University, my last hoorah, the semester of Model United Nations. I purposely took an easy schedule this semester, only twelve credits of academic classes and three physical education classes; after all, I earned it, right? I only need one class to fulfill a requirement for graduation so I was not too worried about the semester ahead. Well, things got much more interesting following syllabus week; my seemingly light schedule turned into a nightmarish commitment, but I guess I was lucky that I was only taking a few real classes. IRP 413: Global Governance Practicum / Model United Nations began with a rigorous first few days. We jumped right into the material, no time for pleasantries on the first day, unlike my other classes. We were immediately questioned about our research on the Czech Republic that we were supposed to have already done, and were introduced into the high standards held for our team. It was intimidating, but I handled it as any seasoned second-semester senior would, with arrogance and gleeful confidence. I don’t think I learned the errors of my ways until the second week arrived and we addressed what we were specifically supposed to know for the ‘Czech basics’ quiz. It was an enlightening moment, and just the shock I needed to finally get this semester into gear. It finally dawned on me what it was going to take, and just how important the minor details about the country we are representing matter.

We started by learning about the basics of the country; the GDP, heads of government, governmental structure, trade relations, economy, important dates, and history of the relatively young nation. We then moved onto the Czech Republic on the international scene. I learned about the Czech’s opinion on the European Union and as a Euro skeptic outside of the Euro-zone. Their foreign policy was largely based around peace-building. They strongly stress the importance of human rights and self-determination dating back to Charter 77, and their heavy involvement in the Peacebuilding Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency exemplifies their dedication to world peace. They are a middle-power in the international system, but they still try to lead by example and principle to make an impact on the world. Their history with Charter 77 and the Velvet Revolution are their pedestals for their non-violent peace-building initiatives. They are not exactly the most potent international actor, but leave a deep impression with their consistent strong principles of peace and sovereignty above all. The first quiz we took tested us on our understanding of basic knowledge on the Czech Republic, while the oral part tested us on Czech foreign policy and international stature.

Next on the docket for the team was learning about the United Nations system. For me, this was the most questionable part of the class. It was full of lots of readings from two books over a three week period - the third week was a bit later in the course when we discussed caucusing. We began by reading an entire book in ten days, Fasulo’s An Insider’s Guide to the United Nations. It was an easy-read by a journalist, but I just don’t understand how it was supposed to help us in the conference. I get that this is an academic course that we have to cover some substance in about the real UN, but I just felt like we wasted three classes we could have spent preparing for the actual conference more. I have my doubts about that reading helping anyone once they were in New York City. We read more selections from Politics and Process at the UN later in the course, and I held the same feelings that it was detracting me from what I needed to know to succeed at the conference. Honestly, knowing how the Secretariat operates is not going to help convince a student from the West Coast to be a signatory to my draft resolution. The classes on the UN system concluded with a quiz I had very little confidence going into, and I left with those same insecurities. It was ugly and forced. I just had to roll with that punch and look forward to focusing on position paper writing.

From this portion of the class I learned a lot about the United Nations inner workings, maybe even more than I wanted to. Our readings delved into the depths of the bureaucratic politics of each council, assembly, office, and nation. I learned about all the agencies and offices associated with the UN; the General Assembly, ECOSOC, UNCTAD, Human Rights Council, and many, many more. It really is an alphabet soup there, and the politics and man-power going into each branch to keep them afloat is truly amazing. It is also because of this mess of people that specific rules and procedure are needed to maximize efficiency when submitting paperwork and conducting committee sessions. The bureaucratic and rules-based system, however, is also in place to enforce a primary ideal of the UN that every nation is equal and they all must follow the proper procedure and larger states simply can’t go over the head of the safeguards in place to ensure fairness. It is a mess, but in a good way that ensures the UN is place where all nations can come as equals to resolve the crises facing the world. It also requires cunning inter-office politics and insiders in order to get movement within the large conglomerate. It makes progress slow and tedious, but all that much more rewarding for those who can proper navigate the system whether it is obtaining signatories or passing a resolution. I can go on for pages about the specifics learned about the United Nations system, but in the context of a course that is prepping us for a competition it all seemed a bit overdone. The one thing I hold onto in from this substantive part of the course is that for all the criticism the UN faces for being inefficient or a relic of idealism, the UN is full of truly hard-working, well-intentioned individuals grinding through layers of red-tape and procedure just for the opportunity for the nations of the world to finally unite under a common goal; it is truly inspiring work.

We spent a lot of time on writing next. Reflecting back on the syllabus it doesn’t look like we spent very long working on how write diplomatically or in the words of the Czech government, but it is the feature I most remember. I think it is with good cause that we spent that much time on it, however, because resolutions and reports are the final results of the conference and what you are there to create, so it is indispensable to be able to write in the proper format and vocabulary. Following the quiz on the United Nations, we were given our committee assignments; the big day finally arrived to learn what we would be focusing on for the rest of the semester. I was fortunate enough to be assigned General Assembly Fourth Committee working on security matters; it was my first choice of where I wanted to be. I was paired off with Claire, and we got started right away that weekend writing a position paper for the Czech Republic on the first topic, refugees in Palestine and Israeli settlements. There was some confusion at first about the position paper because the examples we were given were two pages long, so we wrote ours to be two pages. Turns out it is two pages for all three topics combined, not just the first. So the first draft we turned in after the weekend was completely wrong, but we got it back on track after that.

Following our first position paper topic I resigned from my seat in GA-4 to become an archivist because of a situation with my family made me unable to attend the conference. There was some committee shuffling that week and Amanda ended up taking the seat in GA-4 alongside Claire. Throughout the rest of the position paper writing days I worked with Claire and Amanda to assist them in any way I could. After all, I already conducted some research on the topics beforehand, and the security issues were things I was already familiar with from my previous academic career. Being an archivist allowed me to relax and just be a resource to the rest of the class in any way possible. I primarily worked with GA—4 from then on, but I also had other duties to attend to as an archivist. The position paper classes primarily consisted of related committees breaking out into smaller groups, and we conducted group reviews. I think it was a great opportunity for a third-party perspective on the positions to ensure they truly reflect the stance of the Czech Republic; we cross-checked our information against other position papers, and offered advice about how write more diplomatically.

After each committee established the Czech positions on their respective topics, we moved into agenda setting. Agenda setting was something I have never heard of and was completely new to me that delegates would actually have to debate over what order to conduct business. Being a multiple day conference, I assumed they would cover all three of the topics in the committee, but apparently that is a rarity. For that week we had to prepare a brief stand and deliver stating why we think the agenda should be set in a certain order whether its topic 1, 2 then 3; or 3, 2 then 1; etc. For General Assembly Fourth Committee, having topic number one: ‘Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Assistance to Palestinian Refugees’ was all that mattered. The other two topics on peaceful use of outer space and 21st century information governance were secondary to dealing with the Palestinian problem. The Czech Republic is a strong European ally of Israel and giving assistance to refugees are two of our most notable foreign affairs initiatives. In the class caucusing, we only looked for others also trying to get topic one up first, and we bargained for the order of the other two. They would carry this strategy into the conference, and this topic was indeed picked to be handled first. Caucusing within the class seemed awkward because we are classmates and we are not competing against each other for anything, but I still think caucusing would be the most difficult aspect of the national conference to stay in character for. We finished the week with a review and quiz on rules and procedure, all of which we rehearsed all semester, and it was onto public speaking, a personal favorite of mine.

I love public speaking. I love being a tour guide for the university, and I love presenting in front of classes with confidence. It is something I have always prided myself on. I guess it is because of that exact confidence that I tried to experiment with our in-class stand and delivers on the Czech positions on committee topics. First, I have never written out speeches, presentations, or debates for classes in the past. I always adlib or operate off of general bullets on a note card. The fact that we were on a strict time limit and had to use the proper diplomatic language forced me to write out my speeches beforehand. It was an awkward experience for me, to have to write out my words before I said them, but since I was planning them in advanced I tried to write fancy and unique words to try to make my speeches more unique. In hindsight, this was a terrible idea. For my first stand and deliver, I broke out laughing in my first sentence after saying “beseeches.” Do I ever use that word in real life? No, I just thought it was a cool way to say ‘urges’, but it ended up costing me my entire speech and a poor impression on my classmates. I know I am good at this, so for the next one I needed to kill it. I wrote out my second topic speech well in advanced and had it almost memorized, and when I presented to the class is showed. It was great and I got great feedback from the class. I finally showed them what I could do, and I regained my confidence. For our third topic speech, I pretty much copied the format of my second because I was short on time to write it that week, and my finished product ended up going long and it sounded like a copy; again, another sub-par performance. It was discouraging, but I still knew that I have the confidence to get up in front of anyone and give a great impromptu talk. I think I excelled in the earlier stand and delivers when we talked on impromptu issues for the Czech Republic, and I should have approached my topical talks using the same impromptu style instead of trying to get too fancy. I still love getting up in front of people, and being a guide for prospective students; I just need to remember down the line in my career to not over-write my speeches and trust my instincts more.

For some of the class, getting up in front of everyone and reading a small piece of paper is the worst, but I think we should have practiced more impromptu speeches to help build people’s confidence; instead of just doing it the two times in the small office. If you do it in front of the class, it is fun and you can work the crowd more because they know you are making it up as you go. It is not something that needs to be formal or heavy on the substance, it just needs to help them get comfortable speaking in front of the class even if they do laugh a bit trying to make up something to say.

The class closed out talking more about caucusing, resolution and report writing, final conference procedural rules, and conference logistics. The time spent on resolution and report writing seemed forced and truncated. I understand that they were short on time this year because of the approaching conference week, but hopefully for the following years they will be able to have more classes on this important topic. However, I still think we should have done one less day on stand and delivers and one more on resolution writing. Resolutions and reports are the ultimate final product of the conference, they are what you spend most of your time writing and voting on, so don’t they deserve more than just one class workshop? Despite not going to the conference, resolution writing was the one aspect I feared we were underprepared on. Logistics, addresses, contact information, travel, and schedules were the topics to round out our class time before the conference. I was unable to go, but I knew they were going to do great, and it was wonderful to only hear great things about the team’s experience and accolades.