“To Pass or Not to Pass, That is the Question.”-the Battles of Resolutions.

By Jennifer Tseng and Pertz Liao

After a whole day of intense lobbying, the delegates finally began open debate over their merged resolutions. The General Assemblies, located throughout the Hwa Chong campus, vigorously defended and attacked to keep to their standpoint.The first resolution debated by the General Assembly I was over the question regarding the situation in South East Asia and its progress towards peace, freedom, democracy and development. One of the solutions proposed by Melissa Boey of Shanghai American School, Delegate of Sri Lanka, in the resolution is to foster mutual cooperation by creating a regional forum under the UN meeting biannually, along with the sub regional seminars, meeting quarterly. Throughout the debate, most delegates thought this resolution vague, and without a proper solution for South East Asia. Many countries pointed out that the existing ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) is already performing the majority of the tasks mentioned in this resolution. As a result the resolution failed to pass by a large number of votes. Jian Wei Aw, the Delegate of Iceland, felt that it was “perfectly valid” for the resolution to fail because the proposals were totally unnecessary, and ASEAN is perfectly functional on its own. Xu Haoyu, Delegate of Mauritania, also feels that this resolution does not really specify solutions to problems. “Regarding the problem in Myanmar, the UN took a long time to respond.” He hopes that in the future action can be taken immediately because people are suffering even as we speak; moreover, the resolution does not address the issues of HIV and sex tourism at all. In GA III, the delegates debated over how to recognize and compensate women who were forced into sexual exploitation during the time of war. Delegate of Sri Lanka, Alice Su of the Shanghai American School, main submitter of the first resolution, proposed that the victims be financially compensated and called for the “offending member nations to publicly apologize for their military.” The Delegate also suggested that museums or permanent exhibits be established to bring attention to the victimized women. The exhibit will provide a good visual source, and as Asuka Bando, Delegate of Rwanda from the International School of Manila pointed out, “it is so that people will not make the same mistake again.” However, there was much opposition towards this sub-clause as the Delegates were concerned as to what exactly the museum should display, and if the images be too graphic and inappropriate. As a result, even though the resolution passed, the sub-clause was struck out with a 59 to 37 vote.Alongside the other meetings, General Assembly V was having a heated debate about how to strengthen international cooperation to protect nations against terrorists. During the ninety-minute debate, Chris Park, Delegate of Columbia from the Shanghai American School Puxi raised many good proposals on the resolution for curbing the terrorist attacks, such as seeking assistance from UNOD, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and having the more developed nations share with each other their methods used to combat these attacks. A point was raised that the terrorists’ motives do not stem from the want to do evil, but rather, to promote their religious ideals or to honor their nations. As one of the delegates mentioned, “We are not battling good and evil, but forces unknown.”Another proposal is that the governments seek private corporations such as Motorola for financial support, cooperation, and technology. These companies are essential to the success of this plan as they will be able to provide the technology necessary to protect the nations. The GA strongly believes that curbing the terrorists is not something that can be done single handedly by any nation, and everyone, including the common civilian, must work together to achieve this goal and to ensure the public safety so that there will not be another September 11. Although this was a long and hard debate, the resolution still managed to pass successfully at the end of the conference. The delegates of the General Assembly all showed a strong sense of character today as they battled to stand their ground and hold on to their own points-of-view. Throughout the long and heated debate, people may have begun to wonder whether this battle will ever end, and who will ultimately succeed; nevertheless, all the meetings came to a very satisfactory and conclusive ending.