Disarmament and International Security Committee
According to the Charter of the United Nations, the Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. When cases that threaten peace come up, the Council’s first action is usually to try and solve the issue at hand by non-violent methods. Mediation, discussion and arbitration are some of the common steps that the Council recommends in order to settle a dispute peacefully. However, should these methods not work, the Security Council can take more aggressive action which may include economic sanctions or collective military action. Delegates must keep in mind that the Security Council is a crisis committee and they must therefore be prepared to work efficiently and cohesively to solve an emergency should there be one. While the Security Council is bound to take up pressing issues as they come up, we will be focusing on the situation in Iran and the problem of conflict diamonds at MUN-E 2007.
President Bush labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the “axis of evil” in 2002 for having regimes that sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction. Satellite images have shown nuclear sites in multiple locations in Iran, but the nation continues to insist that these are civilian nuclear sites with no intention for military usage. The denial of the presence of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein had little effect and led to the Second Gulf War. Escalating tensions between the United States and Iran have made conflict imminent and scholars have been led to as not if, but when. The implications of a conflict involving the United States and Iran could be devastating to the entire world and as the Security Council, we must find a way to bring about a lasting solution.
Conflict diamonds, referred to as “Blood Diamonds” by the recent Hollywood flick, are diamonds mined in areas of fighting and sold, often covertly, to finance insurgent or terrorist groups. The Security Council adopted resolution 1173 of 12 June 1998 and resolution 1176 of 24 June 1998, prohibiting the direct or indirect import of all diamonds from Angola, not controlled through the Certificate of Origin issues by the Government of Angola. This was the first ever measure taken by the UN to deal with the problem of conflict diamonds. The situation has since escalated. Skirmishes in a number of African countries like Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia have shown that the problem of conflict diamonds is of grave importance and must be decisively dealt with at the earliest.
As the members of the Security Council, we must come together to come up with a comprehensive solution to the above problems. Seeing as tensions are high, the situations are changing daily and you will be expected to be proficient with the latest developments related to these issues. You must work as a group to draft an all inclusive resolution so that, rather than being a model of the United Nations, we can be a model for the United Nations.
Vivek Salgaocar Committee Director |
Sarah Knapp |