SREENIDHIMUN
UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY STUDY GUIDE
SreenidhiMUN GA Study Guide
Dear Delegates,
Welcome to the 2014 Sreenidhi Model United Nations in Hyderabad and
welcome to our committee, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
The chairpersons for the UNGA are Nilesh Kasimahanti and Pravishta Nadella.
Nilesh Kasimahanti is pursuing his diploma in Maths, Physics, and Chemistry
stream with Business Studies. He has participated in a total of fourteen MUN
conferences having delegated in 9 and been part of the executive board in 5.
Student-led conferences have been his interest for the last two years. His
interest in music comes from the 60s and 70s. He is a hardcore anime fan and
likes fan fiction. Two things that are close to his heart are being the delegate
of the United Kingdom and playing basketball.
Pravishta Nadella is an alumnus of International School of Hyderabad and has
participated in 15 Model UN conferences having been a delegate in 12 and on
the EB in 3. Sreendhi Model United Nations will his 16th Model United Nations
Conference. He is very interested in house music and is a hardcore fan of FC
Barcelona and Messi. He loves representing the Russian Federation in the
Security Council and plays football as a full back.
x
May the Force Be With You.
Sincerely,
Nilesh Kasimahanti and Pravishta Nadella
Chairpersons of the General Assembly
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This year’s topic under discussion for UNGA is:
Drones and Whistleblowers- The use of Information Technology in Espionage
and Cyber Attacks.
GA First Committee is the only body in the UN system that allows all Member
States to have an equal voice, and an equal vote, in matters of international
security and disarmament. Simulating this committee gives you the
opportunity to work together to achieve consensus on some of the most
critical issues facing the international community.
We hope you will find this Background Guide useful as it serves to introduce
you to the topics for this committee. It is not meant to replace further
research and we highly encourage you explore in-depth your countries’
policies to further your knowledge on these topics. What the executive board
desires from the delegates is not how experienced or articulate they are.
Rather, we want to see how she/he can respect disparities and differences of
opinion, work around these, while extending their own foreign policy so that
it encompasses more of the others without compromising their own stand,
thereby reaching an ACCEPTABLE and PRACTICAL solution.
Mandate
The United Nations (UN) General Assembly is one of the five principal organs laid out
in the Charter of the United Nations (1945). Its mandate is laid out in Chapter IV of
the Charter, with Article 10 stating that the body:
“May discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or
relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the present
Charter, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations to the
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Members of the United Nations or to the Security Council or to both on any such
questions or matters.”
One of the most important characteristics of the General Assembly is its universal
nature and ability to discuss any issue within the UN system. This is core to the
mandate of the General Assembly, and illustrated by the diversity and range of topics
discussed within its Main Committees.
As mandated in Article 11 of the Charter of the United Nations, the General Assembly
must concern itself with questions of “international peace and security,” and
“disarmament and the regulation of armaments.”
The first resolution passed by the General Assembly, in 1946, called for “the
elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major
weapons adaptable to mass destruction.”
Governance, Structure, and Membership
The General Assembly is comprised of all 193 Member States of the UN, as outlined in
Article 9 of the Charter. Each Member State has one vote, regardless of its population
or geography. Additionally, non-Member States, non-governmental organizations,
and intergovernmental organizations have received invitations to participate as
observers in the sessions and work of the General Assembly. Decisions on important
matters require a two-thirds majority of those present and voting; these questions
include those on peace and security, admission of new members, and budgetary
matters. Though each Member State is granted one vote, there has been a special
effort in recent sessions to achieve consensus on issues rather than going through a
formal vote.The work of the General Assembly is distributed to its six committees,
each examining different topics that affect the international community. The First
Committee examines topics pertaining to international security and peace; the
Second Committee examines economic and financial topics; the Third Committee
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examines social, cultural, and humanitarian affairs; the Fourth Committee examines
special political questions and decolonization, the Fifth Committee handles
administrative and budgetary issues of the United Nations; and the Sixth Committee
examines legal questions in the General Assembly.15 In addition to the six Main
Committees of the General Assembly, a number of Boards, Commissions,
Committees, Councils, and Working Groups work to support the advancement of the
General Assembly’s mandate.
The UN Secretary-General is tasked with serving as “Chief Administrative Officer” of
the organization, which includes providing support – both substantive and logistical –
to committees. All Main Committees receive logistical support from the Department
for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM). For substantive
support, including writing reports and undertaking research, the department within
the Secretariat differs, depending on the thematic issue area of the committee. For
First Committee, the responsible department or entity within the Secretariat is the
Office for Disarmament Affairs.
Functions and Powers
The General Assembly assumes the role as the main deliberative, policymaking, and
representative organ of the UN. It provides a forum for multilateral discussions on a
range of issues outlined in the Charter, specifically within Articles 10 – 22 which detail
the functions and powers of the body as follows:
· The General Assembly is tasked with initiating studies and making recommendations
to promote international cooperation in the political field, encouraging the
development of international law, promoting the implementation of cultural, social,
and human rights, and promoting fundamental freedoms free from discrimination
(Article 13).·
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The General Assembly “receives and considers reports” issued by “the other principal
organs established under the Charter as well as reports issued by its own subsidiary
bodies” (Article 15). The General Assembly Plenary receives recommendations from
the six Main Committees.24 Once the recommendations are sent to the Plenary
Committee, the Plenary then votes on whether to adopt the resolutions as presented.
Any decisions reached by the Assembly are non-binding in international law;
however, their decisions have enacted actions that have affected millions of people
around the world.
Conclusion
The First Committee holds a privileged and unique place within the structure of the
United Nations. It is the only forum of its kind where all Member States are
represented, have an equal voice, and are able to discuss issues of security and
disarmament. This being said, constructively simulating the First Committee presents
a challenge to delegates. This is a committee which is often argued to be “failing to
make good use of its potential,” with States having become “entrenched in their
positions” and “not listening to the arguments of others.”
In this challenge lies opportunity. International Security and Disarmament are the
ultimate goals of the First Committee, and it is the responsibility of delegates to seek
out consensus and compromise, while also searching for innovative and bold ways of
reaching these goals.
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Whistle Blowers:
History
The Continental Congress enacted the first whistleblower protection law in the United
States on July 30, 1778 by a unanimous vote.
Seventy-five years after the ratification of the Constitution, Congress enacted one of
the first laws that protected whistleblowers, the 1863 United States False Claims
Act (revised in 1986), which tried to combat fraud by military suppliers. The act
encourages whistleblowers by promising them a percentage of the money recovered
or damages won by the government and protects them from wrongful dismissal.
The whistleblowers again took the lime light in the very beginning of the 1970s. In
1972 during the Vietnam War. Victory was just around the corner, the architects of
the Vietnam War maintained in their public statements. Privately, however, they
were developing an extensive study of US-Vietnam relations that told a very different
story .Beginning in 1969, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg began photocopying the
Department of Defense documents that demonstrated willful deception on the part
of four White Houses. Among the highlights of the Pentagon Papers was information
on the secret bombing campaign of Cambodia. Ellsberg provided the Pentagon Papers
to the Washington Post and then to 15 other newspapers.
Ellsberg handed the files over to The New York Times in 1971, and charges brought
against him under the Espionage Act of 1917 were soon dismissed. Ellsberg also
remains fiercely proud of his decision to leak the Pentagon Papers, which he says not
only delegitimized the Vietnam War, but also helped usher in a new era of skepticism
about war and government in general.
Ellsberg said
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"The Pentagon Papers definitely contributed to a delegitimation of the war,
impatience with its continuation, and a sense that it was wrong. They made people
understand that presidents lie all the time, not just occasionally, but all the time. Not
everything they say is a lie, but anything they say could be a lie."
Detailed Case studies:
1981-1990
Israel's Nuclear Whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu was the first to imagine a Nuclear
FREE World and take action to achieve it."I want to tell those who say I am a traitor, I
suffered here 18 years because I am a Christian." In 2004, a brave, sober-eyed Jew
named Mordechai emerged from almost two decades in a Mideastern hell of a prison.
Why was he in prison? After 9 years employed at Israel's top-secret nuclear
installation, Dimona, Mordechai went public with the fact of "tiny" Israel's stockpile of
150 to 200 nuclear weapons and its development of a hydrogen bomb, which can kill
millions of human beings. He spoke as an eyewitness at a time when the nation
denied it even possesses nukes. For speaking the truth, Mordechai was abducted
from Italy, drugged and gagged, and imprisoned. His first two years were spent in a
small room where a light and a surveillance camera were trained on him 24 hours a
day. He spent his first 11-1/2 years in solitary confinement. Amnesty International
described his treatment as "cruel, inhuman, and degrading."
Our friendly "democratically" imprisoned Mordechai Vanunu for exposing the nuclear
power it concealed from the world. Israel has now sentenced Vanunu to six more
months in prison for speaking to foreign press.
The whistleblower--now 49, unmarried, unemployed, forbidden to leave Israel--has
no secrets left. What he has to say is that he suffered as a Christian in a state that is
not free, not humane, and punished him for accepting Christ as well as for speaking a
truth that matters to the future of the human race. Vanunu's story and his testimony
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for Christ are virtually unknown to the millions of American Christians who support
and even fund the very prisons, ultra-orthodox settlements, and anti-Christian
government that oppresses Christians in Israel.
Nine years ago , Mordechai Vanunu was released from Ashkelon prison in Israel. He
had served the full 18 years of his sentence – including over 11 years in solitary
confinement – for blowing the whistle on Israel's secret possession and manufacture
of nuclear weapons. But he is still not free: during these past nine years he has
continued to be imprisoned in Israel by draconian restrictions which prevent him from
leaving the country – restrictions which also limit his freedom of speech and
movement within Israel. He has been subjected to harassment and intimidation by
the Israeli authorities, including a further period of imprisonment for breaching his
restrictions by talking to foreigners. So Mordechai has now suffered 27 years' loss of
freedom for his service to the truth. These restrictions must be lifted so he can at last
be free.
1990-2001
Dr Rita Pal, the whistleblower for Ward 87 City General Hospital, North Staffordshire
NHS Trust Stoke on Trent. She raised concerns regarding the current government
policies of underfunding and rationing resulting in a serious risk to patient safety. A
website has been created by the doctor to host all the evidence and documents.
Ward 87 is one ward in the National Health Service UK. There are many wards like it.
The evidence on this website show all UK doctors that it is unsafe to whistleblow
because there are no safety mechanisms in place to protect the doctor. Moreover,
the medical code of silence continues. This website is dedicated to all those who died
needlessly. Their families were never informed by the Trust or the authorities in
power. No death rate was ever recorded by the hospital. The Department of Health
has since confirmed that there is no regulation that makes it compulsory to record
death rates on wards.Her concerns were as follows:
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a) Lack of basic equipment such as drip sets
b) Lack of adequate support for junior doctorsc) Lack of basic care for patientsd).
The concerns were reported internally and externally. At each stage, external
organizations were unwilling to take the concerns seriously. She raised the issues with
the Sunday Times 2nd April 2000. One of the conditions of publication was to raise
the issues with the General Medical Council. She did so. Unfortunately, the General
Medical Council immediately reversed the investigation onto her. In 2003, she found
out that the GMC had been conducting a secret covert "discreet" inquiry into her
apparent mental health. During this period, she was working as a locum psychiatrist in
the NHS. She subsequently litigated successfully against the GMC. During the various
issues she raised with the GMC, she discovered two internal Trust reports that
verified her concerns
1999 and 2001.
The summary of the 2001 Creamer Report concealed by the GMC stated as follows:
(a) “Patient care was clearly affected by the failures identified”;
(b) “The Directorate failed to take appropriate action when the allegations were made
in a statement by Dr Pal”;
(c) “Although medical and nursing staff were concerned about the range of issues...no
one voiced their concerns except Dr Pal which either demonstrated a general
acceptance of the issues or staff felt unable to raise concerns”.
No member of the Trust management, no medical senior or nursing staff has been
held accountable for the poor standard of care that continued before me and after
me. The ward finally shut down in 2005. In the interim, the General Medical Council
has subjected me to no less than 3 investigations on material She has written on the
internet.
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She has been cleared of all of them. The last investigation in 2007, resulted in the loss
of my job and my references. The GMC currently takes no responsibility for their
conduct.
Edward Snowden, the former technical contractor of the US National Security Agency
(NSA) and former employee of the CIA, has been charged by the US government
under the espionage act.While he rattles over his thoughts as world governments go
through their shenanigans, the information leaked by him to a certain reporter put to
light the under the table hands the superpowers play in world politics his reports
showed the aces the US government held up their sleeves right from pliant judges
making decisions that violated the 1st and 4thamendments that include violation of
the freedom of speech and right to privacy respectively, as well as spying &
interception European Communication and bugging of EU offices in Washington, this
drive us back to the days when the Gestapo cored the running of Germany . The same
can be said about the Julian Assange case and his dairy wiki leaks. The debate that
arises is that in this world of cutting edge technology in mind as well as power, where
the world scavenges to keep itself through crisis, does such type of underhand games
in the name of national security show care or public violation, this coming from the
same country that called for the convention to regularize “consumer data privacy in a
networked world.” There are no specific laws laid down for permissible data
retention, does this mean that the possibility intelligence services might find a
terrorist needle in a data haystack justifies abandoning any hope of effective privacy
regulation?
UN Stand on this agenda:
Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized in the UN Declaration of Human
Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and in many other
international and regional treaties. Privacy underpins human dignity and other key
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values such as freedom of association and freedom of speech. It has become one of
the most important human rights issues of the modern age. The publication of this
report reflects the growing importance, diversity and complexity of this fundamental
right. Nearly every country in the world recognizes a right of privacy explicitly in their
Constitution. At a minimum, these provisions include rights of inviolability of the
home and secrecy of communications. Most recently-written Constitutions such as
South Africa's and Hungary's include specific rights to access and control one's
personal information.
In many of the countries where privacy is not explicitly recognized in the
Constitution, such as the United States, Ireland and India, the courts have found that
right in other provisions. In many countries, international agreements that recognize
privacy rights such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the
European Convention on Human Rights have been adopted into law. In the early
1970s, countries began adopting broad laws intended to protect individual privacy.
Throughout the world, there is a general movement towards the adoption of
comprehensive privacy laws that set a framework for protection. Most of these laws
are based on the models introduced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development and the Council of Europe.
In 1995, conscious both of the shortcomings of law, and the many differences in the
level of protection in each of its States, the European Union passed a Europe-wide
directive which will provide citizens with a wider range of protections over abuses of
their data .The directive on the "Protection of Individuals with regard to the
processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data" sets a
benchmark for national law. Each EU State must pass complementary legislation by
October 1998. The Directive also imposes an obligation on member States to ensure
that the personal information relating to European citizens is covered by law when it
is exported to, and processed in, countries outside Europe. This requirement has
resulted in growing pressure outside Europe for the passage of privacy laws. More
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than forty countries now have data protection or information privacy laws. More are
in the process of being enacted.
Drones:
In recent years unmanned aerial vehicles have become increasingly popular for
various reasons. Today more than a quarter of the airstrikes carried out by various
nations across the world are by drones. This is because of the relative safety they
offer to the operator and easy deniability of operation. Almost all aerial
reconnaissance missions today are carried out by drones.
Operations by UAVs or UAS (as recognised by ICAO) have drawn flak in recent years
for having violated sovereign airspace and indiscriminately violating other states’
airspace especially in the volatile Af-Pak region where the United States of America
has carried out hundreds of drone strikes and sorties in the past few years. In
response to this the Pakistani government sponsored a resolution ((A/HRC/25/L.32)
which was passed in the UN human Rights Council.
Another major area of concern here would be the possible use of drones to conduct
cyber warfare. In August of 2014 a leaked report from the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC) reported that they had intercepted an Israeli drone targeting
nuclear research facilities and had capabilities to hack into their systems to spread the
stuxnet virus in the Iranian systems. This has lead to a major international concern
about the possibility of using small, light and virtually undetectable drones to commit
cybercrime and organize cyber attacks.
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Questions a Resolution Must Answer:
• Does national interest and security hold more importance than the right to
privacy?
• If yes, where should countries draw a line when it comes to invading a person’s
privacy?
• Should the UN intervene in cases/countries where there has been invasion of
citizens’ privacy?
• Should there be special protection for whistleblowers / leakers from hostile
action by their country towards them?
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• The concept of cyber warfare is ambiguous: How could a universally agreed
definition of cyber warfare look like? Should cyber-attacks be equated with
actual use or threat of force?
• How can a framework governing cyber warfare be incorporated into existing
international law?
• How can actors be held accountable for the conduct of cyber warfare or cyber-
attacks, especially non-state actors?
• How can, at the same time, individual freedom rights be guaranteed in cyber
space?
• To what extent can censorship prevented while regulating cyber space?
• How can freedom rights be safeguarded while countering the malicious effects
of cyber warfare?
• How can more transparency in the whole cyber sector be achieved?
• To what extent can cyber-defense be strengthened and the conducts of cyber
warfare be regulated through rules of international law at the same time? Is
there a need to prioritize one over another?
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