Model United Nations of the University of Chicago (MUNUC)

MUNUC XXII Position Paper Information

Position papers should be mailed to MUNUC and postmarked by January 12. All position papers should be sent in one packet per school.

Position Papers are the published work of a delegation outlining country-specific information related to the topic area at hand and an official position and plan toward resolving the problem. As such, each delegation should send one paper on each topic. In most cases, this means each pair of students will need to write one paper on Topic A and one paper on Topic B.

Paper Guidelines

Position papers for all committees should:

be one page in length, single spaced (for all committees except Press Corps; see Special Instructions for Press Corps below)
have one-inch margins
utilize size 12 Times New Roman font
be in black print only
have the Committee Name, Topic Area, Country Name, School Name, and Delegate Name(s) headings in the upper left corner of the page
appear untitled
include citations (not considered to be part of the one page paper length)

Citations may be done in any style (e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.), as long as they are consistent throughout the paper.

Content

With regards to content, delegates have considerable freedom. Most Position Papers are organized in a fashion similar to that outlined below:

Part 1 - Background of the topic with relation to the Member State (i.e. what is the Member State’s outlook on or history with the problem)
Part 2 - Official position of the Member State (i.e. what has the Member State done in the past with regards to this problem, both domestically and internationally)
Part 3 - Solutions to the problem that are amenable to the Member State

Special Instructions for Press Corps

In lieu of the traditional position paper as outlined above, Press Corps delegates must submit:

a one page (single-spaced) paper on the history of their newspaper or news agency. Delegates should also discuss their news agency's political slant, if applicable.
a 250-word article (written in the style of their assigned news agency) on any current affairs topic.

Stylistic Suggestions

As a stylistic suggestion, refer to what your country hopes to achieve and not you, the delegate. For instance:

"Her Majesty's Government desires...," "The people of Bolivia would like to see...," or "The Kingdom of Spain believes...,"

would be appropriate instead of:

"I want...," "we feel..."

Tips for Research

Stage I - Familiarize Yourself With Your Country
- The best place to find general information regarding the country you will be representing at MUNUC is the CIA World Factbook managed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Free access to the World Factbook can be found at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html.
- Another excellent source of general information on a specific country is the Background Notes published by the U.S. Department of State. The notes are accessible on the World Wide Web at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/.
- To find the permanent mission of your country to the United Nations in New York, go to http://www.un.int/missions/webs.html.
Stage II - Understand Your Committee

Before diving into your committee topics, it is a good idea to understand exactly what your committee can and cannot do. For instance, only the Security Council can muster military force to resolve a threat to international peace and security. While you may wish to take a particular action, your committee may not be authorized to do so. However, new and inventive solutions are welcomed by MUNUC staff. Many of the organizations and committees simulated at MUNUC XXI have their own websites. Be sure to have a look at them.

Stage III - Researching the Topic Areas
- Once you are familiar with your country and committee, read the background guides to begin your research. Written by the Chair of your committee, these guides will provide a basic presentation of the central problems and several paths towards their resolution. Of course, the ultimate solution remains up to you and your fellow delegates to decide.
- The footnotes used by your Chair in the background papers are a great starting point for your research. The bibliography may also serve as an excellent starting place for further research.
Stage IV - Formulate a Country Position

The position paper is an important way of clarifying the position of your country in a clear and concise manner so as to make it understandable and widely accessible to the various Member States of the committee. All Position Papers will be made available at conference in each committee. If your Chair has not indicated the location of these papers in the committee room at the start of conference, please ask him/her to do so.

Sample Position Paper

Committee: Security Council
Topic Area A: Former Yugoslavia
Country: Ghana
Delegate: Mr. Kofi Annan

Ghana strongly believes that U.N. policy regarding the situation in the Balkans has been flawed from the start. First, Ghana would like to remind the Security Council of Article 51 in the United Nations Charter.

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individuals or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

This article of our Charter clearly establishes the right of any sovereign nation to defend itself from an external attack. However, the U.N.-imposed arms embargo over the regions of the former Yugoslavia clearly takes this right away from the nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. While the U.N. has blindly imposed this embargo over all of ex-Yugoslavia, the amply supplied Serbs have used the armaments left behind by the Yugoslavian Federal Government to beat the poorly armed Bosnians into submission. As such, Ghana believes that the U.N. is doing a tremendous injustice to the nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Thus, unless this body acts immediately to halt Serbian aggression in Bosnia, we are obliged to lift our blanket arms embargo to allow the Bosnians to defend themselves. It should be noted here that we can, and should, lift the arms embargo against Bosnia while keeping it against Serbia, as the Serbs are not currently fighting for the safety or integrity of their nation (as the international community recognizes it), but are rather the aggressors in this situation.

However, Ghana would like to stress that it strives for a peaceful solution to the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia, and to the tensions in Macedonia and Kosovo, and thus would not simply endorse an escalation of warfare within the region. As the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina is of the utmost importance, as the greatest number of human lives are being lost there, Ghana believes that the Security Council should deal with this nation first. Although Ghana does not like the fact that the Bosnian-Croat federation would hold only 51% of the land of Bosnia-Herzegovina, we believe that if the Bosnian-Muslim and Croat leaders can agree to this type of reduction in land, then it should be acceptable to the world community. Because two of the combatants have agreed to this type of land agreement, Ghana believes that it is up to the Security Council to force the Bosnian Serbs and Yugoslav Serbs to accept this new partition of Bosnia, or face a collective onslaught and erosion of their currently held positions. As such, Ghana approves of the fact that the Yugoslav Serbs have ostracized the Bosnian Serbs for not agreeing to the aforementioned plan; however, to make sure that no aid is reaching the Bosnian Serbs, Ghana believes that the U.N. should force the Federal Serbs to allow U.N. monitors between the internationally recognized borders of Serbia and Bosnia. If Serbia does not allow this, Ghana believes that the Security Council should tighten the embargo against Serbia, not even allowing humanitarian aid into the country. Although this may seem unnecessarily harsh, we believe that more direct pressure on the Serbian people and leaders will force them to quickly change their stance, thus saving more lives in the long-term. In addition, Ghana believes that the proposed Bosnian-Croat federation should receive military backing from the U.N. and NATO in order to safeguard its existence. Although we know that the U.N. cannot control NATO, we believe that our positive working relationship in the past will allow for continued cooperation in this realm. Thus, we believe that only a significant and overt military support for the Bosnians will result in an end to this conflict.

Ghana believes that a continued U.N. presence in Croatia and Macedonia will be the best way to defuse tensions in those nations. Although UNPROFOR has experienced difficulties in Croatia, Ghana would like to point out that many of the recent breaks in the cease-fire there have been due to offensives by the Croats, who were the people that UNPROFOR was originally trying to protect. Thus, unless both the Croats and Serbs in Croatia are willing to stop fighting, UNPROFOR should not take on a further role. However, as the preemptive peacekeepers in Macedonia seem to be working, Ghana fully supports them and requests the Security Council to reevaluate the situation and perhaps send more troops there to safeguard the peace.

MUNUC XXII Training & Seminar Program

MUNUC prides itself on providing a distinct, educational experience for high school students, and we make every effort to extend this experience throughout the year. In order to make the knowledge and experience of our staff available to you, we offer the opportunity to have members of MUNUC visit your school to lead a discussion about the United Nations, the workings of Model UN and MUNUC, and/or a wide range of international issues that may interest your students. Staff members are trained to provide an informative and interactive seminar for your students, and each session will be supplemented with relevant materials to ensure that the discussion is as educational and enriching as possible. We offer this program to delegations of all backgrounds and will tailor our program to the general level of your students' Model UN experience. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to visit schools located outside of the Chicagoland area, but we offer to send pertinent training materials used in our sessions to schools that we cannot visit. Please use the topics below as a guideline when requesting a school visit or materials.

Topics Offered For Seminars

Model United Nations

Information specific to MUNUC XXII and its simulated committees
Parliamentary procedure
Resolutions and working papers

The History and Structure of the United Nations

Purpose and present mandate
Bodies of the United Nations
International NGOs and related institutions

International Issues Including:

Regional issues
International human rights policy
International poverty and development
Global security policy

To request a school visit, please fill out this form and return to Ms. Mayon Yen, our Member-at-Large, at . Additionally, if you would like more information about this program or would like to request materials, please also contact Ms. Yen.