To give you all an idea of how debate works at THIMUN, I’m giving you an example from my experience this week.
On the first day, around 200 of us turned up for my committee and they split us into subgroups to debate the issues that our States are most passionate about. Being Switzerland, and having written a draft resolution on the subject, I chose to discuss fiscal fraud.
About 40 of us lobbied one another for about hour, before splitting into even smaller groups to write or combine resolutions with other countries with similar views. I ended up in a group of about ten, thrashing out a resolution that – thanks to my training and strategic advice on how to win Model UNs and influence people (and a bit of luck) – ended up looking very similar to my draft, including all of my operative clauses in some form.
So, the hard part was done. The only thing left to do was get the thing passed.
First, we had to get it through the approval panel. We had typed it on the delegate for the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s (UNECA) laptop, and he very kindly stood in line for two hours, then went through it line by line with a teacher from another delegation, checking spelling and grammar.
Of course, this meant that UNECA (at Model UNs, everyone calls themselves by their country) claimed property over the resolution. But he sent a note to the Chair asking if I could speak on it in his place. The Chair agreed.
As we had numerous resolutions to discuss, the Chair allocated only two hours to debate each resolution. Therefore, delegates do not get many chances to speak. This was, therefore, my first real speech of the conference, even though it was the fourth resolution. You can view some of the speech here (courtesy of Eliza, the Director of the Australian Delegation).
Debate continued for the full two hours, and the vote came out as sixty-three to sixty-two in favour of the resolution – making it the first resolution our committee passed. Passing a resolution is a key objective of the Conference, and those of us who had put the effort into creating, debating, and passing it had a nice celebration.
Today, Switzerland has continued on a good streak. Working two more clauses into a resolution we supported, which was also passed. Feeling far less pressure after yesterday’s success has helped to improve my confidence and the quality of my debate, allowing me to be more aggressively passionate.
Having a great time in GA2, this is Jonty Blundell representing Switzerland.
