Dear Delegates,

Welcome to the VANCOUVER SCHOOL DISTRICT MODEL UNITED NATIONS Conference. Below are Summaries of the topics that the Secretariat has provided to discuss and possibly resolve for stability in the international Community.  Thank you for all of your diligent work to making this  good conference.

Jeremiah Thompson, Clark College MUN Instructor

 

Committee #1
UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL COMMITTEE FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND DISPUTES

 

I. GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

A. Regulating and Facilitating Markets for Pollution Offsets

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Several developed and developing countries are establishing regulatory frameworks for biofuels, including blending targets. They are also providing different kinds of subsidies and incentives to support biofuel, non- petroleum based industries. These developments are expected to spur a sustained worldwide demand and supply of energy in the year to come. Increased production, use and international Trade of energy efficient fuels may slow down the process of global warming and provide an opportunity for developing countries to diversify agriculture production, raise rural incomes and improve quality of life.  It may enhance energy security and reduce expenditure on imported fossil energy.

 

Efficiency considerations indicate that feedstock and biofuel and renewable energy production has to take place in the most efficient countries. Several developing countries – with land to devote to biomass production favorable climate to grow them, and low-cost farm labor – already are or may become efficient producers. Energy security considerations, however, may prompt less-efficient countries to engage in biofuel production irrespective of economic and environmental considerations.

 

Some specific challenges for developing countries include: (i) avoiding diverting too much land from food production to energy crops; (ii) avoiding sharp rises in the prices of food, especially for net-food importing developing countries; (iii) finding ways to ensure that small farmers do not face undue barriers to participation in the sector; (iv) and gaining access to relevant energy technology, including advanced technologies that are expected to reap greater environmental benefits. Conscious decisions, sharing of information and data collection, organizational strategies, government support services, technical and financial assistance will be necessary to minimize the risks and enhance the benefits that emerging biofuel markets may present to developing countries.  UNCTAD, through its BioFuels Initiative, is providing developing countries with access to economic and trade policy analysis, capacity-building activities, and consensus-building tools to help them address those and other challenges.

B. Economic Strategies for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation

 Executive Summary

Tropical rain forest, today everywhere threatened with accelerating destruction, if conserved could be one of humanity’s greatest renewable resources. In 1982 it occupied nearly 12 million (11,610,350) square kilometers of the continuously warm, high-rainfall areas of the globe that lie between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Wherever it remains it forms a three-dimensional carpet, 40 meters or more thick, of intricately interwoven and interdependent individuals of several millions of species (including both plants and animals), and many life-forms more than are found in any other terrestrial ecosystem. Its preservation is important for many reasons, but perhaps the maintenance of this genetic diversity is ultimately the most important, because it offers endless opportunities for mankind, and because it is irreplaceable.

 

 

Below are some sample Operative Clauses

Encourage countries to support land legalization, make concrete security and regulation processes of land property to define clearly the land ownership and/or forest resource use rights, and develop mechanisms to improve land access and /or forests lands use by small scale owners, and conflict resolution mechanisms of land overlaps .

Urge countries, with support from international organizations to identify the chain causality in each country, with the informed participation of all stakeholders, and create democratic mechanisms for stakeholder participation in decision-making about resource management, including the promotion of equitable land-tenure systems.

Urge countries to train human resources so as to build leadership capacity in communities on environmental management, and provide necessary technical guidance, legal instruments and economic incentives on environmental management at community level, and to establish necessary forums to ensure the participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in policy negotiations and enforcement of environmental regulations.

Urge countries to promote sustainable forest production alternatives, establish fair prices for forest products at both national and international level,. Countries shall also make open marketing channels for indigenous people and local communities.

Urge countries to avoid any development project that implies forest destruction, and to develop legal means

Urges all countries to ensure that environmental impact assessment be applied to all development projects that are in or near forest lands. Countries shall strengthen State’s institutions’ capacities to make effective environmental and social impacts monitoring of the development projects

Urge countries, particularly developing countries, to formulate, in partnership with local communities, local projects aiming at sustainable forest management and self -sufficiency in products of importance to local communities, such as fuelwood. Countries shall also promote diversification of rural economy and reduce pressure on forests and other natural resources.

Urge countries, particularly developed countries, to develop and implement policies aiming at modifying consumption patterns, and promoting recycling of wood materials and products, including paper; and to collect information and report to the relevant international treaties and/or organizations on government policies aimed at changing consumption and production patterns of all products that contribute to deforestation and forest degradation.

Urge governments to develop initiatives for shifting penalties and incentives (subsidies, taxes, sector promotion, etc) from promoting unsustainable consumption and production patterns (which contribute to deforestation and forest degradation) to promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns and trade, and to establish a process of identifying and measuring the impact of perverse subsidies and incentives in the forest and non-forest sectors, (particularly agriculture, mining, and hydro-power), which may contribute to deforestation and forest degradation.

Request international financial organizations to analyze specific impacts of foreign debt on forest resources, and develop, in cooperation with donor countries, to explore innovative debt reduction reward schemes for countries that take significant steps to halt deforestation and forest degradation with debt reduction schemes.

Urge countries, with support from international organizations and development agencies, to enforce environmental regulations, and promote decentralized regulatory systems, and to adapt and harmonize environmental legislation with other sectorial legislation (mining, land, energy, etc)

Urge countries to regulate transnational corporation (TNC) activities, and create necessary mechanisms to guarantee that the transnational countries of origin assume responsibility of their actions in other countries. Countries shall also promote monitoring systems of TNC’s among civil societies, and to explore the opportunity for creating an international association of environmentally and socially responsible investors as a means of establishing a clearing-house mechanism that enables institutional investors to support community-based development for sustainable forest management.

Encourage countries to explore ways of establishing an independent international review panel to monitor the status of forests worldwide and to monitor compliance with national laws and international conventions pertinent to addressing deforestation and forest degradation.

Urge countries, particularly developing countries, to strengthen national forest research capacities, and improve forestry education at both technical and professional level.

Urge countries, with support from international organizations, to strengthen the capacity of governments to enforce environmental and forest laws; and to help facilitate law enforcement training.

Urge countries, particularly those with high rate of deforestation, rich in forest biodiversity and/or with representative forest ecosystems of global importance, to take effective measures for forests conservation. Urge development/aid agencies and international organizations and/or mechanisms (such as WB, UNDP, FAO, UNEP, GEF etc) to prioritize these countries for assistance on conservation and sustainable management of forest resources.

Responsibility to arrest the underlying causes lies in the hands of many actors, including governments, civil society, multilateral institutions, research organizations, bilateral aid agencies etc. Within such a wide range of actors, the IFF, particularly the UNEP as the lead agency for the programme element, is requested play a leading and coordinating role in the promotion of a process leading to arrangements on specific commitments to begin to address underlying causes both at national and international level.

C.  Kyoto Protocol in Review: International Cooperation on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Beyond 2012

Executive Summary

The Protocol was drawn up in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 to implement the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change

Industrialized nations who sign up to the treaty are legally bound to reduce worldwide emissions of six greenhouse gases (collectively) by an average of 5.2% below their 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012.For the protocol to come fully into force, the pact needed to be ratified by countries accounting for at least 55% of 1990 carbon dioxide emissions. With countries like the US and Australia unwilling to join the pact, the key to ratification came when Russia, which accounted for 17% of 1990 emissions, signed up to the agreement on 5th November 2004.The final ratified agreement means Kyoto will receive support from participating countries that emit 61.6% of carbon dioxide emissions. The protocol is officially the first global legally binding contract to reduce greenhouse gases.  The Protocol has taken seven years to come into force because many countries felt that it did not highlight the all-important rules of how the nations would operate. 180 nations agreed on a scaled down version of the treaty in 2001. Many were reluctant to ratify until having a better understanding of the treaty. 141 parties have now ratified the agreement.

Now the agreement is law, if any of the participating countries exceed their proposed 2012 target, they will then have to make the promised reductions from the 2012 target and an additional 30% more in the next period. The EU and Japan have already promised to reduce to pollution by 8% from their respective 1990 levels. Individually, each country has developed its own method to meet its targets. The EU has setup a market by which 12,000 factories and power stations are given a carbon dioxide quota. If they exceed this amount they can purchase extra allowances or pay a financial penalty. If they fall below the amount they can sell on the extra quota.  There are still, parties who won't sign up to the agreement. The US, the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, says signing up would ruin the US economy and the pact wrongly disregards developing countries.  Australia, which has a large coal industry, supports the US view and has also opted out. The Australian government has instead developed its own scheme called "The National Greenhouse Strategy". This will attempt to reduce emissions by only 10.1% by 2012, which is an 8% increase on 1990 levels.

Most of the countries in the pact agree that it will be a difficult task to meet their Kyoto targets; already nations are falling behind their targets. Spain and Portugal in the EU were 40.5% above 1990 levels in 2002. Canada, one of the first countries to sign, has increased emissions by 20% since 1990, and they have no clear plan to reach their target. Japan is also uncertain about how it will reach its 6% target by 2012.See the latest progress on Kyoto targets, as well as news and events at the http://unfccc.int/2860.php website.

 

II. Regional Conflicts in Central Africa

A. Eastern DRC

Executive Summary

Remarkable progress has been made since the last CG meeting in December 2002. On the political side, the successful completion of the inter-Congolese dialogue resulted in the establishment of a transitional Government of national unity that is to lead the country to elections in 24 to 30 months. The new Government is now at work, and has demonstrated over the last months a remarkable sense of cohesion and a strong determination to rapidly obtain results, in the form of improvements of living conditions for most Congolese. Donors encouraged the Government of DRC to sustain their efforts and expressed the hope that the remaining security issues concerning some of the country’s remote areas will be soon resolved and that the reform of the security sector and the process of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) will proceed expeditiously.

In parallel, the Government also continued satisfactory implementation of economic forms. Donors also welcomed significant achievements in DRC’s structural reforms, including concrete steps towards increased transparency, public enterprise reform and the implementation of new mining, forestry, labor and investment codes, and encouraged the government to move further ahead in the perspective of reaching the Enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative completion points.

The resolution of the DRC conflict is crucial for the whole region’s stability. Seven out of nine neighboring countries have been hit by conflicts in the last years, highlighting the impact of the DRC conflict on regional and potentially global security. DRC could become a key engine for growth in Central Africa, with immense potential benefits, not just for the country’s 57 million people, but for the entire sub-region.  

Despite significant progresses, DRC’s overall situation remains very worrisome. The country is very far from being on track for the Millennium Development Goals of 2015. Students use 50 year-old textbooks in buildings that are close to collapse. In some hospitals, two patients have to share one bed, two or three babies are placed at a time in one incubator and the general lack of equipment and basic medicines is appalling. The overwhelming lack of basic infrastructure (water, electricity, roads) is only balanced by the strong determination of the Congolese and the devotion of medical workers, teachers and civil servants.

 

The assumptions that have been made in the past in studying this area.

B. Uganda

Executive Summary

The war in northern Uganda has raged now for 21 years, making it Africa's longest running conflict and as described by one UN official: "the world's worst neglected humanitarian crisis." The war has led to the displacement of 1.7 million people - over 80% of the region - who now live in camps of the most squalid conditions. According to recent reports, 1,000 people die each week as a result of the poor conditions in these camps. The war is also known for the brutal abduction and use of child soldiers. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has filled its ranks by abducting over 30,000 children. Many of the luckier children who escape abduction are forced to "night commute" each night to sleep under verandas in towns to avoid kidnapping. Tens of thousands of people have been maimed or killed over the course of the conflict.

The situation in northern Uganda is a complex conflict that has been misunderstood by various actors, leading to inadequate and ineffective policy prescriptions. The war is essentially two conflicts in one: first the fighting of the LRA, which is waging war against the Ugandan government and terror against civilian population in the north, and second, the real grievances of Ugandans in the north against the existing government.

The war arose out of a divisive political climate, which was embedded by British 'divide and rule' colonialism and then perpetuated by post-colonial Ugandan politics. This climate created a politicized North-South divide in Uganda, which, mixed with the normalization of political rebellion, created a swamp for insurgency. When the current president, Youweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement took power by coup in 1986, they alienated northerners, creating perceptual and actual incentives for rebellion.

Since 1986, the insurgency within northern Uganda has undergone four stages, beginning with a more popular rebellion of former army officials and evolving into to the current pseudo-spiritual warlordism of the LRA. To date, the LRA consists predominantly of abducted children brainwashed, brutalized and forced to kill viciously as child soldiers. Alienated from the Acholi, the LRA wages terror on the civilian population as a means to maintain attention and challenge the government.

After attempted peace talks facilitated by Betty Bigombe collapsed in 1994, the conflict was morphed into a proxy war that cannot be understood separate from the geopolitics of the Great Lakes Region. In 1994, the Sudanese government began to provide military assistance and support the LRA, while the Ugandan government provided military assistance to the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), an insurgency in southern Sudan. The West, particularly the United States, saw this as the battlefront of the war against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in sub-Saharan Africa and provided significant amounts of aid to the SPLA through Uganda. New elements of a war economy and arms trafficking made peace more elusive.

Following September 11, 2001, the United States has increased its strategic alliance with President Museveni and his NRM regime in Uganda. The U.S. quickly declared the LRA a terrorist group and increased military aid to the Ugandan government. This relationship only further solidified the insistence of Museveni on a military approach to end the war. Unfortunately, the "military solution" has exacerbated northern grievances and proven ineffective over the years. According to almost all analysts of the conflict, serious facilitated negotiations with trust-building mechanisms are the key to peace. However, the obstinacy and inconsistency of Museveni, coupled with the incoherency of the LRA, has made such talks difficult.

In the summer of 2006, the newly-formed semi-autonomous Government of South Sudan agreed to host and mediate peace talks between the warring parties. The involvement of such a strategic mediator coupled with new openness by the parties to negotiations led many to call this the "best opportunity in over a decade for peace in northern Uganda." In August, the parties agreed to a Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) that led to relative calm in northern Uganda, allowing some IDPs to return home. However, the talks have since stumbled due to the rigid involvement of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a weak CoH Monitoring Team and divisions within the LRA networks. The international community, especially the U.S. Government, has remained largely silent and missed opportunities to strengthen the peace process. As this neglect continues, the people of northern Uganda remain condemned to lives of despair and displacement.

C. Sudan

Executive Summary

Recent economic growth and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) have both been seen as grounds for optimism about the future of food security in Sudan. However, solving the North- South conflict (if indeed it is solved) does not resolve conflicts within either the North or the South and may even encourage a variety of conflicts. The classic neoliberal prescription of peace, growth and foreign investment may deepen (and obscure) the needs and grievances of those who have historically been left behind in a dysfunctional development process. Historically, some of those marginalized by patterns of development in Sudan have chosen to rebel, while others have had their grievances diverted against those even more marginal than themselves. Dysfunctional and violent processes of development must be reversed. They cannot be adequately compensated for-but may be legitimized -by attempts to use food aid as a ‘safety net’. Meanwhile, those who benefited from war may have incentives to derail the peace.

D. Central African Republic

Executive Summary

Although the Central African Republic has made progress toward recovery, it will take a determined and concerted reform effort to achieve sustained growth and poverty reduction. In addition to the fragile security situation in the northern border areas, which have exacerbated the plight of the population, the country must address a number of problems:

• a narrow export base that makes the country more vulnerable to adverse terms of trade movements;

• a decimated transportation infrastructure and relatively fragile security situation, particularly along the main transport routes, which complicate the public sector's ability to deliver social services to the sparse population and to trade within the country and with neighboring countries;

• limited and unreliable service delivery from public utilities;

• weak governance;

• a thin tax base, yielding one of the lowest tax revenue-to-GDP ratios in Africa;

• minimal administrative capacity in the public sector; and

• an underdeveloped banking sector, which plays only a limited role in financial intermediation.