-
13. The Ethical Dimension of MUN
- University of Nebraska Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
107 She left her [paper] on the chair, and someone took it and submitted it with their name on it. —MUN advisor from First Colonial High School during the Harvard Model United Nations conference in 20081 A delegate has taken ideas from the document we are working on and . . . submitted them as their own. —Delegate in the UN Environmental Policy Committee2 I snagged an idea from France. I helped him create the idea and then I didn’t like what he was doing, so I took it and went off on my own. He got pretty mad about that; he called me a cheater. I would have felt guilty about stealing his idea, but he wasn’t the nicest person about it so I really don’t. —World Health Organization delegate3 By its very nature, diplomacy—as practiced both in the real world and in Model United Nations—conjures up a rigorous competition of ideas and strategy. And for most MUNers and their teacher-advisors, playing by the rules fits the expected norm. The difference between modern diplomacy in the real world and what takes place in its scholastic counterpart is, of course, the educational purpose of MUN. Learning to play by the rules, fostering the idea of nations working cooperatively to understand each others’ views, and crafting language that reflects a consensus of nations’ views—those are essential elements to Model UN. Upholding the educational purpose of Model UN and fostering its ethical dimension is in large part the responsibility of adult teacher-advisors who, by their words and actions, are able to ensure that the proper message reaches their student audience: namely, that “winning” in Model UN—however it may be measured, whether by writing working papers and position papers or getting resolutions to the floor and passed—does not justify unethical practices. Unfortunately, sometimes 13 The Ethical Dimension of MUN _______________ 1 Jessica Levine, “HMUN Delegates Play Dirty,” Conference Newspaper, Harvard Model UN Conference, 2009, 1. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. the wrong message or an inconsistent message—or no message at all—is what students receive. With win-at-any-cost motivation and AWOL ethical standards, competition crowds out the hard work of understanding multiple perspectives and seeking consensus, and for some delegates the thrill of victory or the fear of defeat becomes a driving force fueling students who resort to deceitful practices. But the burden of promoting best practices and policing violations does not rest solely with teacher-advisors. Conference sponsors also have a responsibility to set high ethical standards, promote and publicize them, and stand by them. The role of high school MUN coaches and sponsors should be to reward conferences that uphold ethical standards and bypass those that do not. Just as some high school MUN teams gain reputations among MUN faculty sponsors and advisors for poor ethical practices, so do conference sponsors, both at the college and high school levels. Repairing those reputations once gained is an almost-impossible task. Too often, ethical practice goes unmentioned in preconference materials prepared by conference sponsors, especially at the college level where one might reasonably expect to see the issue of ethical practices highlighted.Then at the conference, harried Secretaries-General and their staffs listen patiently to protests by students and/or teacher-advisors and then plead ignorance or “it’s your word against theirs, what am I supposed to do?” Bringing together the complaining party and the accused may not resolve the immediate issue, but it would put everyone on notice that unethical behavior is inconsistent with the purposes of Model UN, and that any further examples of such behavior would have consequences. Making it clear ahead of the conference that unethical practices will cause delegations to be removed from award contention would go a long way to discouraging such behavior. For example, the Montreal Secondary Schools United Nations Symposium (SSUNS) Model UN Conference run by students from McGill University includes among its rules the right to sanction delegations whose votes or support for resolutions is at variance with its national policies. Such rules are effective in limiting the occasions in which two country delegations from the same high school end up supporting each other or the same resolution when their national policies are in opposition. For example, Cuba might agree to support a U.S.-sponsored resolution cracking down on drug smuggling in the Caribbean but it is highly unlikely that Cuba would support a U.S.sponsored resolution calling for a trade embargo...