KSUHSMUN
Main Briefing Note

Kennesaw State University High School Model United Nations (KSUHSMUN) consists of the following principal organs and committees of the United Nations:

The General Assembly The Security Council The International Court ofJustice The Disarmament and International Security Committee (Ist Committee) The Economic and Financial Committee (2nd Committee) The Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (3rd Committee) The Special Political & Decolonization Committee (4th Committee) The Legal Committee (6th Committee)

KSUHSMUN is a model and therefore has certain limitations. Among these are time, size, and logistical factors. Unlike the United Nations in New York, which is in session for several months and supported by a staff of literally thousands who are at work year-round, KSUHSMUN is restricted to a session of only two days. Due to such limitations, only five of the main Committees could be incorporated into the simulation. Also, due to limitations of conference facilities, only one delegate per Main Committee may be assigned. However, each delegation in the General Assembly and Security Council may be represented by as many as two delegates. It should be noted that all five Main Committees, plus the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the International Court of Justice, will remain in session on both days.

The following me brief descriptions of the constituent parts of the Model United Nations held at Kennesaw State University.

The General Assembly

The General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. It is the central organ of the UN, having a wide range of powers and responsibilities. Article 10 of the Charter, for example, empowers the General Assembly to "discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter." More importantly, under Article 15, even the Security Council and the SecretaryGeneral must report to the General Assembly -whereas the GA does not report to any other organs. The General Assembly operates under a one country, one vote system, thus giving equal voice to the wide variety of countries in the UN system:

The General Assembly discharges most of its deliberative functions through several Main Committees, much like the U.S. Congress carries on the bulk of its legislative functions through numerous congressional committees. Thus, recommendations and resolutions considered and adopted in the Main Committees and other subsidiary bodies are regarded as works preparatory to consideration in the plenary sessions of the General Assembly, where the Whole process begins again.

The General Assembly Plenary Session is convened on the first day of the model. The GA will deliberate on those agenda topics which the KSUHSMUN Secretariat shall transmit to it. In order to approximate as closely as possible the actual deliberation of the UN General Assembly, the KSUHSMUN Plenary Session may consider for its final approval or disapproval some of those resolutions which were acted upon by the Main Committees. This can only take place, however, if the Plenary Session has completed its assigned topics.

All delegates are urged to be thoroughly familiar with GA voting rules, as explained in Article 18 of the Charter. This includes the distinctions between voting on important questions, which requires a twothirds majority of the members present, and voting on procedural or normal questions, which requires a simple majority of the members.

The Security Council

Unlike the General Assembly, the Security Council is small in size and its responsibilities are not diverse. The Security Council consists of fifteen members, five of which are designated as permanent members. They are: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Ten non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms.

The Security Council is vested with the primary responsibility of maintaining international peace and security, and the five permanent members share that primary responsibility with the ten non-permanent members.

In discharging this paramount function, the Security Council may place on its agenda for consideration any dispute, threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.

Furthermore, under Article 25 of the Charter, all U. N. members "agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council." This Charter provision is generally construed to mean that all Security Council decisions, unless expressly stipulated otherwise, are binding.

The most notable feature of the Security Council is the "veto," a privilege which may be exercised only by the permanent members of the Council. All the KSUHSMUN delegates are called upon to be conversant with the provisions contained in Article 27 of the Charter regarding voting procedures in the Security Council: procedural questions need any nine affirmative votes; but substantive or non-procedural matters require nine affirmative votes "including the concurring votes of the permanent members."

The International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice has fifteen (15) judges who are elected by both the General Assembly and the Security Council, voting independently of one another. The judges are elected for nine-year terms, and they represent the principal legal systems as well as main forms of civilization of the world. All permanent members of the Security Council have been represented on the Court since its existence. Nine judges constitute a quorum, and decisions of the Court are made by a majority of the judges present, with the President of the Court casting the deciding vote in case of a tie. To simplify the debate and the decision process, KSUHSMUN will use only three judges in the ICJ simulation.

The Disarmament and International Security Committee (1st Committee)

Convinced that there are symbiotic relations between international peace and security and reduction of arms, the First Committee places very high priority on disarmament and non-use of force, both nuclear and conventional. However, in recent years, the First Committee topics have taken on an added dimension, including conflict resolution between the developed and the developing nations.

The Economic and Financial Committee (2nd Committee)

This committee deals with problems and issues implied by its name and, therefore, it focuses on such issues as global economic development, the transfer of technology between industrialized and nonindustrialized nations, and the sustainable use of resources on a global basis. Also included on this committee's agenda are those crucial matters that decisively affect international trade and finance, such as the international debt crisis and global trade blocs.

The Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (3rd Committee)

The primary concern of this committee is to promote social progress in all human endeavors on a global basis. In particular, this committee focuses on such issues as transnational cultural and educational cooperation, including universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all -without distinction as to race, sex, or religion.

This committee, one of seven Main Committees of the General Assembly, was created in 1947 as an Ad Hoc Political Committee for the specific purpose of relieving what was then called the Political and Security Committee of its heavy workload Because the First Committee has always been overburdened with an excessive number of agenda items, the Ad Hoc Political Committee was made permanent in 1957 as The Special Political Committee. This committee is designed to address itself to many of those international political issues that threaten global peace, such as the Iraqi invasion into Kuwait, the ArabIsraeli conflict, the crisis in the Balkan , and other global hotspots.

The Legal Committee (6th Committee)

This committee is concerned with agenda topics dealing with international legal questions. In particular, the committee's primary responsibility is to help the General Assembly realize the U.N. Charter mandate (Article 13) which calls for "the progressive development of international law and its codification." It should be noted here that this committee, in turn, relies on the International Law Commission for the more technical formulation of international law, i.e., drafting and codification, etc. The ILC, consisting of 15 international legal experts, was created by the General Assembly in 1947. Currently, it has 34 members who represent the main legal systems as well as major forms of civilizations of the world.

Conclusion

Every member of the United Nations is entitled to representation on each of these Main Committees. It goes without saying that most of the in-depth debate, negotiation, and compromise occur in the aforementioned five Main Committees. Indeed, the KSUHSMUN delegates may quickly realize that the constraint of time and other political exigencies will force them to caucus in order that their views might be incorporated into existing resolutions. In short, an acceptance of the need for a certain amount of compromise is important, as this will reduce confrontations to a minimum level, and more accurately reflect the essence of United Nations politics and debate. The central point of each Committee is to widen, so far as it is practical, the area of consensus in order to accommodate the views of as many delegations as possible on each given issue.