Sunday

Sunday saw the last day of debates for UCMUN XXI. Delegates made closing statements and passed their final resolutions. Here’s look at the last committee sessions:

Disarmament and International Security Committee

DISEC delegates debated the presence of China’s military bases in the South China Sea in an intense moderated discussion. Historically, China has claimed sovereignty in the South China Sea since 1947. However, some nations claim that this claim of sovereignty violates the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This convention states that countries have a 200 mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) from their shoreline. The line drawn by China, however, extends 1,200 miles below mainland China.

The delegate from France was against China’s military bases in the South China Sea, citing negative environmental impacts against the coral reefs. This delegate stated that it is not worth it to bow down to China for the purpose of economic stability. The delegate from Malaysia agrees, citing that China is bullying its neighbors by claiming this part of the sea. The delegate from Thailand agreed that China’s claims to the South China Sea is illegitimate, however, a healthy relationship with China is important for their economy. The delegate from Myanmar agreed with the delegate from Thailand claiming that a conflict in this region could cause a global recession. The delegate from Pakistan said that it relies on China as a trade partner, and fixing the issue with China with diplomacy would be the best option. In an interview with the press corps, the delegate from Pakistan believes that countries in southeast Asia should work together on this issue. The delegate from the United States voiced its support for keeping the South China Sea open for trade.

While many delegates were against China’s claim to the South China Sea, many delegates voiced their support for China. China defended its military bases by claiming that the United States built military bases in the Philippines and no one complained then. The delegate from Iraq called the United States far more imperialist than China. The delegate from Iran agreed with the delegate from Iraq. The delegate from the Philippines did not approve of calling out only the United States citing the example that one wouldn’t be free from murder charges just because someone else previously happened to not be charged. 

United Nations Security Counsel

In an unprecedented confluence of events, today the UConn Model United Nations Security council learned the shale fields in North Dakota burned, making all oil gathered from there unusable, a five-way war between Middle Eastern oil-producing countries broke out and all the tar sands in Canada have dried up, a vulnerability the prime minister had been concealing. These events caused oil prices to spike dramatically world-wide. 

“We are all affected here and in reality, all of our economies will drastically be affected by this,” the delegation for the United States of America said. “It is imperative we immediately exploit oil and other fossil fuels in the arctic to amerolotre the damage to our economy.”

The delegation from Malaysia urged the council to take this catastrophe as a warning.

“I do not believe this is a reason to exploit all of our resources in the Arctic, rather this is an opportunity,” the Malaysian delegation said. “These events have shown that if we rely on oil too much, this can cause an extremely catastrophic event that can affect all of us.” 

Some nations such as Russia, advocated for the generation of a treaty to keep Arctic waters open. 

“Treaties are not permanent,” the delegation from India said. “There is no way to guarantee that nations that are hungry for resources and hungry for geopolitical power will not engage in warfare, especially in a crucial area of this planet, in the arctic, where we see a lot of resources and trade routes.”

Madeleine Haefele