21 passionate delegates, 16 hours of sophisticated negotiations, and 2 days of exciting simulation – these figures describe the first of many following simulations on our delegation’s path to the NMUN Conference in New York 2013.
On Saturday morning the NMUN delegation of Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen came together in a model General Assembly 1st Committee. Most of the delegates were facing their initial simulation of a United Nations conference, where they were able to take on the role of his or her nation of choice. After the Chair had opened the first formal session the Speakers’ List was opened and some delegations added themselves to the list. This first step was of crucial importance for the upcoming debate because in this early stage the order of the agenda is getting determined. For that reason the delegations held their prepared Agenda Setting Speeches. After the delegates heard a couple of speeches, the topic Women, Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation was chosen to be the first topic on the agenda by the majority of the delegations. Thereby the topic for the next two days was set and the significant work could get started.
The first substantial speeches on the topic were well phrased and capable to demonstrate each nation’s position on the topic. After that, contacts between single delegations were established and first cooperation evolved during Informal Caucus. As a result two Working Papers were created and each delegation tried to influence content and language of them. Actually, this process took most of the time interrupted by substantial speeches during formal session that had the purpose to convince other delegations of the speaker’s stance on the issue. The process of negotiating and writing proved to be more time consuming than expected hence the first Working Paper turned into a Draft Resolution not until Sunday afternoon. It took several amendments, revisions and corrections to get there, finally. From this point the whole simulation gained momentum. According to the diverse interests of each delegate the Draft Resolution was tried to be amended or changed in its wording while the second Working Paper still needed to be accepted by the Chair. Due to the eventual approval by the Chair of the second Working Paper, there were two Draft Resolutions on the floor in the end. Before entering into Voting Procedure several requests for amendments were submitted.
Finally, in late Sunday afternoon, Voting Procedure started. This concluding element of committee meeting demanded our full concentration because this was the time when the product of the meeting would be approved. Due to amendments raison d’être of the final resolutions still might be altered. Every delegate needed to vote cautiously in order to ensure not to be unexpectedly disappointed by the adopted resolution in the end.
Conclusively this first simulation was for most of us what is also called to jump in at the deep end. Still, the outcome was highly fruitful and encouraging. We recognised the essentiality of making sure that the Speakers’ List doesn’t run out, and moreover, the crucial importance to have informal discussions during Caucus. Besides the valuable input we received during these two days, this weekend was great experience, because we had a lot of fun and grew together as a group of fellow delegates.
