1/31/12 - Be sure to get your positon papers in by Saturday, February 4th (earlier is prefered)! Email them to unsc2012@mitmunc.org
12/23/11 - Background guides have been posted! Good luck on your research in the coming month!
11/11/11 - Summaries of the topics have been posted!
Among the functions of the United Nations Security Council, the preservation of international peace and security is at the forefront. In the past, the UNSC has taken specific actions towards this aim in countries experiencing political strife. Most recently, political conflict in Côte d'Ivoire has sparked interest both with the UN and with a number of human rights groups.
In November 2010, run-off presidential election results, as determined by a third-party election commission, reported that Alassane Ouattara was the winner, ending incumbent Laurent Gbago's decades-long regime. When Mr. Gbago refused to cede power, citing results released by his administration that declared him the winner, a troubling dispute was sparked--and soon escalated to violence. By Feburary 2011, the United Nations warned that the violence had fully escalated to civil war. By April 2011, Ouattara supporters captured Gbago, ending the war, and leading to Ouattara's inaguration in May. Now as Côte d'Ivoire seeks to reconcile its factions in the wake of civil war, it faces the great tasks of finding homes for some of the 500,000 people displaced, and of international investigations and proceedings to determine whether or not war crimes and crimes against humanity took place.
Côte d'Ivoire has experienced a history of political strife and civil war since its first military coup in 1999. Accordingly, there has been a timeline of UNSC intervention in Côte d'Ivoire. Ethnic conflict, human rights abuses, crime networks, and high poverty rates are some of the many problems that, have in the past and, continue to threaten the political stability of Côte d'Ivoire. Among the issues the UNSC must bear in mind is the balance between ensuring state soveriegnty while protecting against human rights infringement. It will be your job to determine the best means for the United Nations to return permanent political stability to Côte d'Ivoire.
While the nature of armed conflict has changed dramatically in recent decades, in many developing and underdeveloped nations, the involvement of children in armed conflict has intensified. More and more, children are being used as soldiers and, in the process, made the victims of terrorist acts, abduction, rape, and denial of myriad other basic human rights. The UNSC has taken a special interest in this issue in recent years, and while noteworthy progress has been made toward ending these violations against children, there is still much to do.
The situation in Myanmar is especially bleak. Long-time military rule by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), while nominally over, has led to the obscuration of passed child conscription laws as forcible recruitment of children has expanded with the Tatmadaw Kyi's (armed forces') need for greater troops to silence resistance to the nation's authoritarian rule. Children and teens are often taken from bus and train stations by appointed recruiters given quotas for enlistment and threatened into service. They are often then listed as 18-year-olds in official records despite their actual age. Enlistment of children even younger than those recruited by the government often occurs by splinter resistance groups like the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), and the Shan State Army (SSA). As a result, many children and families have fled Myanmar due to the outbreaks of conflict. The UNSC put the situation in Myanmar specifically on its agenda in 2007, and has conducted prelimiary research as to the scope of the issue, but has yet to order significant action. It will be your job to decide what the goals of the UNSC should be in preventing the further infringement of children's rights in Myanmar given the state of affairs, and how best to proceed with these goals in mind.