Harvard WorldMUN 2023

Review of the Harvard WorldMUN 2023 in Paris

For the first time in three years, due to the Covid-19-Pandemic, the 30th session of the Harvard WorldMUN took place in person in Paris, France. From the 12th to 16th March 2023 over 1300 students from all over the world came together in the city of love and light in order to find solutions to the problems of world politics. Our delegation represented the Republic of Costa Rica in six committees as single or double delegates, in the Legal Committee, the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (SPECPOL) , the Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC), the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM), the Economic and Financial Affairs Committee (ECOFIN) and in the World Conference on Women.

Paris as the world capital of diplomacy offered a spectacular environment for all participants of this Model United Nations to discuss politically relevant issues of our world and to find alternative approaches to problems that affect all of us such as global warming or enduring rivalries such as the Kashmir conflict. The opening ceremony was introduced by the french singer and songwriter LUXIE, followed by inspiring speeches of Corinne Menegaux, Director-General of the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau, Prof. Marie-Christine Lemardeley Cunci, the Deputy Mayor of Paris, and Prune Antier from the France Éducation International Institut.

Outside the committee meetings, the programme was rounded off by various social events. These included, among other things, a Cabaret Night, a boot-cruise on the Seine and a diplomatic cocktail evening under the pyramid of the Louvre. Speakers here included Amélie de Montchalin, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of France to the OECD, Jordan Naidoo, Director of UNESCO for the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), and Colombia Barrosse, Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs Paris.

The event was overshadowed by some organizational mistakes on the part of Harvard, which affected the venues of the committees and the course of the events. Longer journeys and rooms that were too small and did not offer enough space for all delegates were sometimes the result.

Nevertheless, the delegation from Jena used their free time for pleasant excursions together and exploring the city, which was marked by the ongoing strikes of the public sector.

With the following remarks, we would like to give an overview over the committees we took part in, the topics that were discussed and the strategies that our delegates followed.

Legal Committee

The topic of this year's legal committee was ‚Non-Self-Governing Territories‘ and what decolonization meant in the 21st Century. Over 200 students debated about it in the biggest committee of WorldMUN 2023. The first two committee sessions were held on Monday, here Costa Rica had its first speech on the topic of the importance of referendums for independence and tried to make itself heard in a large and diverse group of over 20 countries.
 
The next Committee session was two days later, together with Argentina, Poland, Hungary and Canada, Costa Rica formed the ‘together’-bloc and collected support for a common Working Paper. However, halfway through the writing process Canada decided that its interests where better invested elsewhere and left the bloc.

The last two Committee sessions where held on Thursday, the core members of the Together-bloc decided not to join any other bloc but to write their own Draft Resolution. In one hour only, Costa Rica, Argentina, Hungary and Poland – now going by the name Integrity-bloc – wrote down their ideas and created the shortest but by far most progressive Draft Resolution. After presentation of the three final Draft Resolutions the one of Integrity was the only one staying completely within the mandate of the legal committee and with all Signatories actually asked for their approval. The Integrity-bloc put all their effort into promoting theirs but had to submit to the majority support for another Draft Resolution. Still, all members of the Integrity-bloc are proud of their efforts and achievements

Special Political and Decolonization Committee

The Special Political and Decolonisation Committee, or SPECPOL for short, is a subcommittee of the UN General Assembly. At the WorldMUN 2023 conference, SPECPOL discussed how the Kashmir conflict should be resolved.

A total of three block positions formed. For one bloc, the main problem in the Kashmir region was the proliferation of violent insurgent groups. This bloc felt that focusing on counter-terrorism solutions was the first priority in addressing the larger Kashmir conflict. Another bloc felt that the committee needed to focus on revising the Indus Water Treaty to ensure that the people of Kashmir had adequate access to water. The last bloc argued that the main problem in the Kashmir conflict was the lack of self-determination for Kashmiris. The delegation of Costa Rica was an important player in this block. At the end of the meeting, a Kashmiri representative addressed the committee. Although this representative did not explicitly advocate with a bloc, his wishes for Kashmir were exactly what Costa Rica had argued for.

Costa Rica made several speeches emphasizing the need to restore the rights of the people of Kashmir. At this point, the three blocs have each started working on Working Papers.
Costa Rica, along with Japan, South Sudan, Pakistan and others, drafted a paper entitled which eventually became a draft resolution entitled "KIND - Kashmiri's Independence Nonviolent Democratisation". Almost all of Costa Rica's proposed solutions were included in this draft resolution and it was adopted by a clear majority.

Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee

The topic of the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM) this year was the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Costa Rica wanted to advocate for the repeal of all laws against the Rohingya that violate human rights, as well as support for refugee camps in Bangladesh.

At the start of the negotiations, about 14 countries were allowed to give their opening speeches, including Costa Rica. In session two the first discussions with other delegations took place and Costa Rica joined a block of mainly Latin American countries, such as Honduras, Brazil and Ecuador. The idea was to draw up a working paper that clearly distinguished between short- and long-term aid, allowing immediate humanitarian aid without losing the bigger picture.

On Thursday, the last day of negotiations started and the delegation of Costa Rica allied with the team of another working paper with similar ideas. Costa Rica took the lead in drafting a joint resolution and succeeded in presenting the resolution to the plenary together with Panama, Guatemala and Portugal. In the final vote, the resolution that Costa Rica had contributed to, could unfortunately not be established.

Economic and Financial Affairs Committee

With the increasing impact of climate change, the Covid-19-pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, ECOFIN set itself the task of addressing rising global energy insecurities at WorldMUN 2023 in Paris. In order to counteract the global energy crisis three main topics were to be addressed in the resolution: energy use in buildings, the energy use in industry, and transport. The main topics of discussion in the first committee sessions were the switch to renewable energies and the financial difficulties of its implementation, as well as broad solutions for the energy transition.

The Costa Rican delegation, represented by Razia Gul Mohammad and Beatrice Zillmann, also had the chance to emphasize the necessity of the change to renewable energies and of international cooperation. Long sessions of debates were concluded by a 'Consultation of the Whole', a pro-contra debate on the use of nuclear energy moderated by the delegations, which divided the committee into two camps. In the follow up sessions working papers were written, merged and converted into draft resolutions, in which Costa Rica collaborated with countries such as Cameroon, Lithuania, New Zealand and Denmark on the so-called Global Energy Efficiency and Security Treaty (The GEES), in favor of multilateral cooperation between developing and developed countries. The draft resolution supported by Costa Rica prevailed at the end of this very intensive session and was adopted by 34 of the 47 delegations present.

Disamarment and Security Committee

The Republic of Costa Rica was represented in the Disamarment and Security Committee by Lucas Kozun and Ben Mengler. At HavardWorldMUN 2023, DISEC addressed the issue of child soldiers. The goal was to develop a comprehensive plan to combat the abuse of children as soldiers, sex slaves, cooks and spies. For Costa Rica the main focus lay on the proposal of effective and long-term Disamarment, Demobilization, Reintegration (DDR) measures. As a concrete concept, the delegation of the Republic of Costa Rica proposed the so-called SanJosé Plan, which included some specific proposals.

After two days of holding speeches, participating in the main discussion and negotiating in the backroom Costa Rica, along with several other South American delegations, sent a quite comprehensive working paper to the Chair, which was divided into three central pillars: Prevention; Protection (Disamarment); Reintegration.

The last day consisted of the working papers becoming so-called draft resolutions. Here, the Central and South American bloc joined forces with the European bloc in order to include as many states as possible in the resolution and not leave anyone unheard. Together with the working paper of the European states, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Uruguay and many others submitted a draft resolution and successfully defended it in plenary. In the final vote, the draft resolution of the Central-South American and European blocs prevailed, becoming an official resolution of DISEC at HarvardWorldMUN 2023.

Women’s Committee

In the focus of the Women's Committee this year, two topics were available at the beginning: 'Gender Quotas' and 'from Girl-Child to Political Office'. On the first day of the meeting, after ten speeches from different delegations, the delegation voted in favour of the topic of gender quotas, as this topic was identified as the basis for further discussions in the field of gender equality for women.

During the first three sessions on Monday, the delegation of Costa Rica was able to represent itself through a total of three contributions. As a country that has already successfully implemented a quota system for the inclusion of women, the Costa Rican delegation took the opportunity to present their own country as a role model and to call on other countries to become equally active in the field of equal rights for women.

During the first day of the meeting, four cooperation blocks were formed, which developed into three large cooperation blocks on the second day of the meeting, each of which presented its own working papers. On the third day of the session, the existing three cooperation blocks merged into two blocks. On the last day of the session, the Costa Rican delegation managed to convince four country delegations (Armenia, Egypt, Tunisia, Latvia) to cooperate with their own bloc in individual discussions. In the end, two draft resolutions were presented and debated. As the Costa Rican delegation did not deviate from the principles of its own country, Costa Rica did not vote for the enforcement of the draft resolution, which was adopted in the end.

Conclusion

As the various committee reports show, the variety of topics at the Harvard WorldMUN was very exciting and diverse. We are happy to have represented the Costa Rican delegation and to have been actively involved in proposing solutions. Furthermore, the week at the Harvard WorldMUN allowed us to deepen our rhetorical skills and awareness of international cooperation to solve global problems.

We would like to thank again all of our sponsors that made our trip possible and gave us the opportunity to experience all aspects of this unique event.