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November 13, 2006

Thoughts after my first Security Council session

I wonder if real diplomats come home after maintaining international peace and security and think: "Oh crap, my basil plant died while I was sending an envoy to Iraq and now the only thing eatable in my apartment is a bag of peanuts."

I just came home from a Model United Nations (MUN) in Copenhagen, organized by DANMUN. The Security Council was called into session because of the threat to international peace and security caused by the assassination of the mayor of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. After three days in session, we condemned the PKK  (this is the official site)as a terrorist organization, sent a UN envoy to mediate the situation in Kirkuk, and finished by adding Japan to the axis of evil (just to appease the delegates from Congo after some incident at an unbelievable Chinese restaurant with free beer.)

As a delegate for the Russian Federation, I am amazed at how long I can go without sleep, coffee and food for the sake of world peace. Although real diplomats probably do not stay at hostels or travel internationally by bus, I would like to recommend both Danhostel and Lavprisekpressen. They are both excellent and wonderfully cheap. The Russian delegation shared a room with a delegate from Peru and a delegate from Congo, as well as an ever-changing "new guy" in the sixth bed. Most of these new people kept very different hours from us, mainly because they always slept, and we never did. Seriously. We stumbled in at 5AM and set our alarms for 7.

So what is a MUN? It is a game basically, but it isn't fun unless you take it seriously. The rules are: each member of the UN Security Council is represented by delegates and these delegates hold formal sessions with rules of procedure based on the real sc rules. Both in session, and in the lobby outside the session, delegates work to solve international problems while maintaining their own national interests.

The rules of procedure became habit, until the Russian delegation found ourselves speaking diplomat English to eachother outside session, even though we all speak Norwegian and two of us (not including me) also speak Russian. We were saying things like:

"Motion to eat at this vegetarian buffet restaurant I once went to."
"I rule that out of order, as we cannot find that restaurant. This delegate would also like to point out that she will veto any draft resolutions even suggesting dinner at McDonalds."
"That is very much in order. Motion to suspend search for restaurant in order to buy coffee."
"I second that motion."

I intend to continue, both this post (in order to give more information) and diplomat-speak (in order to annoy Ingvild), but not right now. I miss sleeping and drinking water. 

 

Posted by Julie at November 13, 2006 8:57 PM

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