Friday 20 January

1:00pm – 1:30pm | Registration and informal lobbying
(Lancaster Arts Centre)
1:30pm – 1:45pm | Opening Ceremony
(Archer Recital Hall)
1:45pm – 3:30pm | Committees in session
3:30pm – 4:00pm | Break
4:00pm – 6:30pm | Committees in session
6:30pm – 7:30pm | Schools may return to hotels to change for the evening social events.
7:30pm – 10:30pm | Diplomatic dinner and Highland ball

Saturday 21 January

9:00am – 10:30am | Committees in session
10:30am – 11:00am | Break
11:00am – 12:30pm | Committees in session
12:30pm – 1:30pm | Lunch
1:30pm – 3:30pm | Committees in session
3:30pm – 4:00pm | Break
4:00pm – 5:30pm | Committee plenaries and Closing Ceremony
5:30pm | Conference closes.
(Optional packed supper provided
upon departure)

WYCOMAC

The Future of Arctic Cooperation
Climate Engineering in the Arctic

More Information about Wycomac

WASAMUN

Disarmament and International Security
• The question of restoring the Iran Nuclear Agreement.
• The question of the militarization of space.
• The question of regulating the military use of artificial intelligence.

Human Rights (Training Committee)
• The question of torture of Uyghur Muslims.
• The question of freedom of political expression on social media.
• TBC

Security Council
• The question of Security Council reform.
• The question of nuclear arms in South Korea.
• The question of Palestine.

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS.
Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present
Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

Step One: Research your country

• Once you know the country you have been allocated, you should begin to do some general research. The easiest way to do this is on the internet.  The BBC news website carries country profiles, as does the CIA Fact Book and the Economist.  You should also visit the official website of your country’s government.

Step Two: Research the issues in your committee

• Each committee has an agenda for the conference and the next step in your preparation is to research the issues on the agenda for your committee.
• Every committee in WASAMUN this year has a range of issues on its agenda, and we have provided you with topic guides for each of these issues to help with your research and understanding of the issues.
• Don’t forget to research your country’s stance on the issues, and any way in which they have been involved. It is important that you also understand the issues from the point of view of your country.

Step Three: Write a Policy Statement

• Having established what the policy of your country is on each of the issues, you should then use this knowledge to write one policy statement which will be delivered at the beginning of committee business.
• A policy statement should contain the following:

• • An outline of all the issues.
  • Reference to the main documents on each issue.
  • A statement of your country’s position on each issue.
  • Suggestions for solutions to the problems.

Step Four: Write a Resolution

• This Policy Statement can then be used to produce a resolution. All delegates should aim to write a resolution for one of the issues in their chosen committee.
• Delegates should use their research from the first two steps and from their policy statement to write their Resolution. Information on how to write resolutions follows later in this guide.

Before debating of resolutions begins, you will need to present and discuss your proposal with other delegates. A good lobbyist should be able to summarize his/her resolution neatly and concisely so fellow delegates can gauge the aim of your resolution. Furthermore, you will need to be persuasive to gain allies and supporters of your proposal resolution. Remember you only have a limited amount of lobbying time to talk to other delegates.

It is a requirement that any resolution that wishes to be debated will need to have at least five signatories from different member states in your committee, not including you as the submitter. Signature sheets will be distributed by your Committee Chairs. There are a few regulations with which one must adhere:

A signature that has been obtained as a co-submitter from a delegate of the same school as the main submitter is not valid.
For co-submitters, only two signatures from delegates of the same school (not your own) are permitted. This is to ensure that your resolution has substantial support from a range of people in the committee.

You should aim to get signatures from member states that are allied with your own nation/nation’s ideology on the particular issue at hand. Apart from signatures, lobbying is also a time where one may wish to set-up yield chains (see Procedure of Debates on page 9) and determine potential allies in the committee, as well get to know the other delegates with whom you will be debating.

When a resolution has the correct number of co-submitters, it can be placed before the Approval Panel. The Approval Panel will make sure that the resolution is correctly written and formatted. An Approval Panel does not judge the content of a resolution, but only whether it is correctly written and is not offensive. Once a resolution has been approved it can be debated in committee, if chosen by the Chair.

Resolutions will be submitted electronically for approval and then hard copies for committees will be printed out by the Secretariat. Delegates will receive instructions in their committee rooms on how to upload their resolutions. They will then receive their approved or rejected resolution in person. More information about this process will be provided in the Conference Handbook when the delegates arrive. Therefore, delegates must bring their resolutions electronically, and may also wish to bring hard copies for lobbying.

During opening speeches, each delegate is allowed one minute to address the committee. During opening speeches, delegates should lay out the overall aims for the conference, as well as setting the right tone for the conference. Puns are welcomed!

In the committee stage, the delegation team splits up to participate in their different committees. Resolutions which have been passed by the Approval Panel will be debated in the committees and the submitters of resolutions will be required to speak on their resolution, with the expectation that they will yield the floor to one of their co-submitters. Whilst Committee Chairs will be looking for delegates who participate best for the Awards, it is expected that at this stage delegates are encouraged to submit amendments to improve resolutions.

In the General Assembly (GA), delegates re-join their delegation to debate the GA resolutions and the emergency resolution.

One delegation in the General Assembly can communicate with another by writing messages on official notepaper and having the message passed by the Secretariat staff. During committee time, it is also possible to pass notes to fellow delegates. To send a message to a delegate within your assigned committee, delegates should write the country which the delegate is representing on the note. If a delegate wishes to send a note to a delegate in another committee, they must write both the country of the delegate it is being sent to and also their committee. Delegates are encouraged to bring their own notepaper.

Delegates are expected to provide their own official notepaper. This will usually be on A5 paper headed with the delegation name. Delegates should be mindful that the Secretariat Staff may leak notes to the MUN press! Delegations are advised to bring approximately 40 sheets of official headed notepaper as delegates will need this for communication with other delegations and the Chair while in General Assembly and in Committee. Amendment paper will be available from committee chairs.

Once a resolution has acquired five co-submitting signatures in lobbying and has been checked by the Approvals Panel, it may be chosen by Committee Chairs for debate.

Debate Format
Debate in committees is split into time for the resolution and time against.

The Chair announces the timings for a debate and calls the main submitter of the resolution to take the floor as the first speaker in time for the resolution.

After the time has elapsed for speakers for the resolution, debate will move directly to time against the resolution, unless there is a motion from the House to extend debate time.

Speeches
The main submitter of a resolution is required to read out the operative clauses (the preambulatory clauses are not debated) of his or her resolution and may then make a speech in favour of it.

Subsequent speeches will only be required to speak on the resolution, without reading it.

Speeches will rarely last longer than two to three minutes and the Chair may ask delegates to come to their closing remarks if the length of their speech is seen to be limiting debate time for the committee as a whole. Delegates may end their speeches before this time if they wish.

Points of Information
A Point of Information is a question to clarify the speaker’s speech, or to offer a separate line of argument for the speaker to consider.

Following each speech, the delegate will be asked by the Chair whether he or she is willing to take points of information. In the event that they are, the Chair recognises a number of delegates from the floor to ask points of information.

Points of information should be relatively short, and must be phrased as questions. If a point of information is too long, incomprehensible, not phrased as a question or if it does not pertain to the resolution or amendment at hand, the chair may ask the delegate who asked the question to rephrase it.

A delegate asking a question should remain standing until the speaker has answered it. Following points of information, the Chair will give the speaker the opportunity to yield.

Yielding
In MUN, ‘yield’ refers to the speaker passing the floor on to another delegate, or back to the Chair. As such, if the speaker chooses to ‘yield to the Chair’, the speaker takes his or her seat and the Chair will ask the House if there are any further speakers wishing to speak for or against the resolution (depending on which half of the debate is in progress).

The speaker may, however, wish to yield to another delegate; in this event, the delegate that has been yielded to proceeds directly to the floor without needing to be recognised by the Chair. The Chair however must approve this. The next speaker then proceeds to speak as outlined above.

The usual yield chain will be no more than A > B > C > Chair. Delegates may forge yield chains (ie agreements between themselves) during lobbying or breaks, but not across the house.

Amendments
An amendment changes the resolution.

During time against the resolution, the House will debate amendments to the resolution. These may be submitted by delegates to the Chair at any time during the debate, and amendment sheets may be obtained from Secretariat Staff.

Amendments may strike a clause, amend a clause, or add a new clause. The debate of amendments follows a similar format to that of whole resolutions, but the timings are necessarily shorter. Usually there will be approximately ten minutes allotted for and ten minutes against an amendment, whereas timings for whole resolutions will tend to be upwards of 20 minutes for each half of debate.

Voting
Delegates will be required to vote on each resolution as a whole. For votes on resolutions, delegates may vote for, against or they may abstain. Amendments are also voted on, but delegates may not abstain. Resolutions and amendments need a simple majority to pass.

Language
Delegates must remember to use parliamentary language at all times. As well as being generally polite, delegates should not refer to themselves as ‘I’, since they are representing a country. They should refer to themselves in the third person; they should use pronouns such as “we”, or refer directly to their country (eg “Burkina Faso feels strongly that…”, “Libya disagrees with…”, “Mexico is delighted that…”).

In addition, it is not in order to discuss funding for the UN or associated bodies. For the purposes of MUN, the UN is assumed to have unlimited funding. This is because discussions about funding can ultimately dominate a debate, without delegates being able to tackle the pertinent and interesting issues at hand. It is in order to tackle the funding of non-UN bodies, such as member states. A resolution calling on a state to finance a project may be discussed with regard to that funding. A resolution calling on the UN to finance the same project may not be discussed with regard to funding. However, one may discuss the practicalities of a proposal, and whether it is an effective use of funding.

Motions and Points from the Floor
During debate, delegates may call out a number of different points or motions. Here are the main points and motions:
A point of personal privilege is the only time when a delegate may interrupt the speaker. It is used to denote some kind of personal difficulty, most often when the delegate is unable to hear the speaker.
A point of order may not interrupt the speaker. Delegates wishing to make points of order should wait until the speaker or Chair has finished. They are used when a delegate feels another delegate has offended them by saying something derogatory, untrue etc. Points of order are to be addressed to the Chair, and it is the Chair who will answer the point by deciding whether or not the speaker was in order and what, if any, action should be taken.
If during the course of the debate, a delegate may find themselves needing to seek permission to approach the Chair. Without permission granted, it is not in order for delegates to disrupt debate by approaching the chairs unannounced.
A point of parliamentary procedure may be made if a delegate feels the House is not following correct procedure. A point of information to the Chair may be made if the delegate wishes to inform the Chair of something they feel would assist debate. Neither may interrupt the speaker.
Motion to extend debate time – may be granted if there is time and the resolution has not yet been fully explored in debate.
Motion to move to open debate – if passed, the for/against format is abandoned and speakers may approach the resolution from either side. If a committee is engaged in open debate, speakers may to yield to one another, even if they intend to vote differently on the resolution.
Motion to move to voting procedure/previous question – will be granted in cases where further debate seems to be of little use and the house is largely decided.
Motion to make friendly amendment – if there are no objections, this incorporates an amendment directly into the resolution without the need for further debate or a vote. Usually granted in cases where the amendment is uncontroversial, for example if it just seeks to clarify the wording of an existing clause.
Motion to divide the house – if a vote on a resolution has failed, and the number of abstentions added to the number of votes for would yield a majority, delegates may propose a motion to divide the house. This motion is always entertained: a second vote is taken in which delegates may not abstain.
Motion to evict – this will rarely be entertained without very good reason, but in exceptional circumstances, delegates may vote to evict one particular delegate.

Before an MUN Conference, you should write a resolution on at least one of your committee topics found in the topic guides. The resolution is a document produced by delegates as a solution to an issue that is being debated. A resolution is a formal statement of a proposal to a UN Committee or to the Security Council.

A resolution is made up of preambulatory and operative clauses. The language of a UN resolution is very formal and, in order to understand how to write a resolution, please consult the following pages.

The basic structure of a resolution is shown below:

COMMITTEE: Environment
QUESTION OF: Global Warming
SUBMITTED BY: Male
CO-SUBMITTED BY: Niger, Chad, Sudan, Zaire, Tanzania

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
Concerned that levels of carbon dioxide continue to rise,
Noting that this increase is due mainly to burning if fossil fuels in industrialised countries,
Deeply concerned that continued global warming is likely to have extremely serious environmental consequences,
Further noting that the Earth Summit agreements are not being fully implemented.

Calls upon all member stated to abide by agreements made at the Earth Summit;
Suggests that one way of achieving a reduction of carbon dioxide production would be for industrialised countries to introduce a carbon tax;
Recommends that income raised by the carbon tax is used to assist LEDCs develop clean production systems.

Title
The title of a resolution should include the following:
the name of the committee debating the resolution;
the question (what the resolution is about – the title given on the agenda);
the names of the submitter (the country of the person writing it);
the names of the co-submitters (countries supporting it);
the UN body to which the committee reports (ie the General Assembly).

Preambulatory Clauses
The preambulatory clauses provide a background to the problem and are the introduction of the resolution. These are not debated. However, there are a variety of acknowledgements you need to make. You will need to write references to former UN resolutions, ratified conventions, and declarations. You will need to provide official figures and possibly congratulate countries and organizations which have already worked on the issue. You will need to explain any difficulties that have been encountered thus far on the issue in this section of your resolution.

Operative Clauses
The operative clauses are the basis for the debate. They set out what further action and measures there need to be. These must be researched and need to be formed on the basis of viable solutions and the policy of the nation a delegate is representing. You must ensure that your proposals fully reflect the existing policies of the country that you represent. You may, for example, wish to encourage or invite countries to sign/ratify a convention. You may propose a new method of approaching an issue. You may support existing work or wish to supplement it. You may wish to implement new bodies or sub-bodies specifically to address the issue at hand.

Structure
The following rules apply when writing a resolution:
the opening verb of each clause is underlined;
there is a line-space between each clause;
each operative clause is numbered;
the sub-clauses begin with a), b), c), etc ;
acronyms are written out in full the first time they are used (bracketed);
each preambulatory clause is followed by a comma;
each operative clause is followed by a semicolon;
there is only one full stop, that is, at the end of the resolution.

Some Pre-Ambulatory Clauses

*May only be used by Security Council delegates.

How to Write a Clause
Here is an example of ways in which one could propose a few ideas on an issue. On the issue of ‘waterborne diseases’, you may think that the UN should aim to research into providing cheap water sanitation devices, and a good way to do this would to be to propose a clause with a body along the lines of:
1. Proposes that UNBWS (United Nations Body for Water Sanitation) to act as a sub-body of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) be created in order to:
(a) Determine the most efficient method of medical prevention of waterborne diseases whether by water-treatment or the provision of new water sources.
(b) Research into cheaper technology for desalinization, sand filtration, well re-charging, and other water purification strategies as a short term goal.

2. Encourages governments to ratify water pollution controls and hold private companies responsible for the quality and cleanliness of the water they provide.

Also you may think that education and awareness is important and may like to discuss the necessity of an education plan. Here one could write:

3. Calls upon the UN to help launch campaigns to increase awareness of the regional health for all members of the public in those nations deemed necessary by the WHO (World Health Organization), with a focus on how to provide safe sanitation.
Note the incorporation of existing bodies such as the WHO in the clause (it is not always necessary to set up a body). Remember these are only generic examples on how one may want to deal with this specific issue and are only a guide.

 United Nations

 UN Cyber School Bus

 CIA World Fact Book

 Embassies Worldwidek

 The Economist

 CNN

 BBC World

MUN is a role-playing exercise and, therefore, pupils are expected to look and behave like diplomats. In order to attain the degree of formality required, all delegates should observe and abide by the following code:

attempts to imitate national costumes are out of order as these are often inaccurate and may cause offence;no denim (eg jeans or denim jackets);
all gentlemen are required to wear a tie;
all delegates are asked to acknowledge the event’s formality and are therefore required to wear suits;
delegates are required to wear a skirt or trousers with a jacket;
the length of skirts must not be more than two inches above the knee;
no bare midriffs should be visible;
black tie is optional at the social event on the Friday evening.

Humour is always welcome as long as it adds to the overall positive tone of the conference, is not offensive and is not aimed at individual delegates or delegation.

All delegates must treat one another with respect and displays of negative behaviour will not be tolerated. These include:
aggressive debating;
putting down opponents;
staging walk-outs;
declaring war;
insulting language (delegates should strive to promote a positive image of themselves and the country they are representing);
the decisions of the Chair must be respected at all times (in GA as in committees);
smoking is banned everywhere at all times;
alcohol must not be brought onto or consumed on the premises;
chewing gum is not permitted;
chairs and Advisors have the right to intercept notes.

The Conference Director reserves the right to declare conduct as unbecoming, which may result in ejection from the conference, as well as a ban at future conferences.

Awards will be presented to those who have best met the following criteria:
correct presentation of the policy and position of their country in committee and in General Assembly;
debating ability, correct use of parliamentary procedure and abiding by the duties of a Delegate.

The selection will be made based on the opinion of the Chairpersons and a vote of all delegates in the committees. Awards will be made for:
Highly Commended Delegates
Outstanding Delegates
Contribution to General Assembly
Highly Commended Delegations
Outstanding Delegations.

Any delegate ejected by the Chair will probably be considered ineligible for any award.

The question of regulating the military use of artificial intelligence

The question of restoring the Iran Nuclear Agreement

The question of the militarization of space

The question of freedom of political expression on social media

The question of torture of Uyghur Muslims

The question of the water scarcity

The question of nuclear arms in South Korea

The question of Palestine

The question of Security Council Reform