Bradley University Model United Nations

Esteemed Delegates,
“My name is Carl Budd, your chair for this year’s BUMUN Security Council. I am a senior International Studies and French double major here at Bradley. I spent my junior year abroad in Rennes, France and the following summer interning at the US Embassy in Paris. My previous experience with UN simulations includes a UN mock summit at UN headquarters in New York in the context of the Global Young Leaders Conference. Hailing from Peoria, I attended high school both locally and in southern Minnesota, graduating from Shattuck-St Mary’s School in Faribault, MN.”
The Security Council (SC), consisting of five permanent members (The People’s Republic of China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and ten rotating positions filled by nations elected to two-year terms from the UN General Assembly. The presidency rotates monthly among the nations of the SC in alphabetical order. The SC is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security through the establishment of peacekeeping operations, international sanctions regimes, and authorisation of military action. These measures are executed through Security Council Resolutions.
Security issues at the fore of international attention necessitate decisive action on the part of the UNSC. During this conference, the question of how to approach an Iran with nuclear ambitions and the dilemma of handling the humanitarian crisis of Darfur will be the two main crises addressed. Background guides on each will be furnished to supply you with further information.
If you have any questions regarding the committee or the conference in general feel free to contact me at mbudd@bradley.edu.

The Iran issue is a definitive example of nuclear proliferation in the 21st century. Iran has been seeking nuclear technology. The question is whether or not these technologies will be used for the processing and developing of nuclear weapons. Iran contends the purpose is entirely peaceful, maintaining that the nuclear technology will only be used to aid in Iran's growing energy consumption. Other nations led by the United States; charge that the Iranian efforts are for the development of nuclear weapons with the intent purposes of either use against Israel or the United States. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has been signed by 189 states, including the United States, People’s Republic of China, Iran, and Russian Federation.
As Iran continues to push forward with its uranium enrichment program, it has received various warnings. Israel has been adamant that it will actively work to halt any and all attempts by Iran to create nuclear weapons. Israel itself neither confirms nor denies its own possession of nuclear weapons, but is not a signatory of the NPT. This furthers concerns of a nuclear Middle East war and furthers the dangers of nuclear war overall.
Iran seems to be acting alone or at least without concerted aid from other states. The International Atomic Energy Agency has laid claims to several failures of Iran in meeting NPT and IAEA criteria. Thus, the question of Iran and the actions of the United Nations are now considered pressing.

Derive potential solutions to the diplomatic stalemate in the Iranian crisis.
Identify the misinterpretations of previous diplomatic endeavors, which failed to address the crisis.
Attempt to redraft or merely revise the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
Will there be a potential solution in the near future?
What, if any, resources will the U.N., EU, or the U.S. use to address Iranian concerns?
Why are neither the Russian Federation nor the People’s Republic of China eager for sanctions against Iran?
What consequences will arise from current proliferation crisis?
Will this affect the current U.S.-Indian nuclear relations currently under the scrutiny of the U.N.?
Will this problem shed more light on American ambitions for a missile-defense shield?
2. Conflict in Darfur

The UN has deemed the conflict(s) in the western Sudanese region of Darfur a “humanitarian crisis.” Fighting between the Sudanese military and the ethnically-Arab Janjaweed militia on one side and rebel groups including the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on the other have left more than 1.000.000 people displaced and, according to a conservative UN estimate, over 70.000 people dead. Others place the death toll as much as four or five times higher. Ethnic tensions as well as reprisals stemming from the Sudanese civil war are root causes for the conflict. Lack of resolution and the ever-growing number of deaths has caused many in the international community to call for UN intervention.
In August of 2006, the UN Security Council voted 12-0 to authorise a peacekeeping mission provided the Sudanese government was not in opposition. Sudan, however, opposed the UN taking over for an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force. More recently, in September of 2007, representatives of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and of the members of the AU Peace and Security Council were joined by officials from the European Union and the League of Arab States at a high-level meeting on Darfur. The meeting’s objective was the mobilisation of support for the international community’s tri-faceted approach to the conflict: securing a political solution, deploying the AU-UN peacekeeping operation, and providing humanitarian and recovery assistance to civilians affected by the violence. Further negotiations are scheduled to be held on 27 October in Libya.
The committee should direct its focus to the execution of the tripartite solution to the conflict and more specifically to the role the UN should play. The urgency and scale of crisis demand swift and decisive action on the part of the Security Council.