Sacrum Yogaslavium Imperium: A Report from Disarmament and International Security Committe (DISEC), HNMUN 2010

Harvard National Model United Nations (HNMUN) 2010 is one of the most prestigious events I ever participated in, from which I gained enormous invaluable experiences. Representing Paraguay, I, along with Buna Rizal Rachman, joined other delegates in the first committee, Disarmament and International Security (DISEC). Attended by more than 300 delegates, it was the largest committee in HNMUN 2010.

Taking place in Imperial Room, Boston Park Plaza, the DISEC conference started with the debate over which topic that the delegates would discuss throughout the conference as there were two topics given by the committee: Militarization of Arctic and Nuclear Terrorism. The formal debate proceeded with most delegates favoured the latter. In the long run, the committee chose Nuclear Terrorism to be the topic of conference by overwhelming majority of those who favoured over those who were against.

The next stage of conference was discussing major problems lying within the scope of nuclear terrorism such as inadequate guarding system of nuclear facilities in certain countries, reluctance of some countries to comply with international standards with respect to their maintenance and development of nuclear power, and poor border control among countries, which all might resulted in detrimental threats of terrorist attacks. The discussion was mainly consisted of clash of opinions since every country had its own policy and interest regarding its nuclear program. As a result, such situation led to the emergence of new issues such as state sovereignty (questions arising over this issue comprised whether or not every country has an inalienable right to develop nuclear program with limited interference of foreign countries) and the questions over the legitimacy of the Non-Proliferation Treaty since not all nuclear powers are its signatory such as India, Pakistan, and Israel, and that it has created confusion due to multiple interpretation of it in areas such as whether or not nuclear power states must disarm their nuclear weapon.

The conference continued to finding the solution to the problems discussed in the previous sessions. Again, since every country had its own policy and interest, it was quite challenging to find solutions that satisfied the entire committee. A clash of interests took place in areas such as the total disarmament of nuclear weapon. Many countries such as Japan and Portugal strongly aspired to such idea, believing that the presence of nuclear weapon was one of the primary causes of nuclear terrorism while countries such as Russia firmly opposed to the idea, believing that many measures could be taken to ensure the safety and the security of nuclear weapons in many countries, thus reducing the risk of nuclear weapons falling into the possession of terrorists, instead of just destroy them.

Many delegates came up with excellent, creative ideas and those ideas were summarized in their working papers. In total there were more than 7 working papers in DISEC with their own strengths and weaknesses. When it came to debating over the working papers, the heat of the debate escalated and reached its climax when the committee discussed the draft resolutions. There were more than 5 draft resolutions in DISEC and the debate over them went intensely. There were times when some delegates raised their tones and expressed their resentment and disappointment. However, it did not reduce the level of their professionalism as they objectively discussed only the substantial matters. In the end, the committee successfully passed a draft resolution into a resolution by voting with rather slight difference of votes 56:46.

From the intense conference, I learn many invaluable experiences such as general assembly parliamentary procedure which is totally different from the parliamentary procedure that I learned in the campus. In addition, I also learned about what it takes in international diplomacy such as excellent diplomacy skills, ability to build an alliance, and ability to analyze and to predict the ongoing situation. Those lessons are definitely useful to help me pursue my future dream as a diplomat.

Apart from the mentioned lessons, I was also able to build new networks with other delegates, ranging from those who came from the Western Hemisphere such as the United States, Colombia, and Venezuela to those coming from Eastern Hemisphere such as China and Korea. I am now still in touch with the delegates I met during the conference and it is wonderful to have (more) friends from the international world.

*: posted by Pratama Yoga Nugroho, a junior at English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University, Semarang, Indonesia.