THIMUN 2018 - Day 4

Tuesday, 30 January 2018

Our delegation arrived in The Hague on Saturday morning. We then took the train into Amsterdam and had some fun in the city centre. We had the world’s number one french fries or “patat.”

When the conference started on Monday, I was very excited to see who the people in my committee would be, and even more so those in my group. I have made a few new friends, all of whom are exceptionally nice and are funny in their own ways. So far, it’s been a great conference, and I hope it gets even better as the debate heats up.

Tuesday was the first day of debate for all committees, and the first resolution (a document that presents a solution to a current issue) to be debated was on the issue of establishing a technology bank for Less Economically-Developed Countries (LEDCs). It was submitted by the DPRK (North Korea), and everyone who signed it really only did it as a joke. I’m pretty sure the delegate representing the DPRK submitted it as a joke, as all it did was establish a bank that any country, with or without sanctions, could use, and as many people know the DPRK has a massive number of sanctions. This technology bank would also focus massively on nuclear energy, however even nuclear waste can be weaponized, so it was clear that the DPRK was just trying to further its own agenda. Many people made speeches on it absolutely bashing it for what it blatantly was, and I even wrote a five-minute speech, though sadly I wasn’t picked to speak. My role as our delegation's ambassador and as the delegate representing the World Trade Organization (WTO) on this issue isn’t really that large, considering it didn’t have much to do with trade, but I probably could have swayed some of the people who voted for this resolution. This resolution, thankfully, did not pass.

The next resolution to be debated was concerning the monitoring of minors’ bank accounts. It was pretty boring considering that it isn’t really much of a problem, and there isn’t much that we can do that isn’t already being done by the UN and other organizations and countries themselves. I had basically nothing to say on this matter, as the WTO, or as myself as, once again, it’s not really a huge problem and it doesn’t concern trade that much. Not a lot of delegates said much, and I can’t blame them because it was quite a boring topic, and all the resolution was doing was implementing the same things that are already being done, except a bit stricter. This resolution did not pass either.

The final resolution we debated that day was on the issue of apprehending the exploitation of refugees by criminal organizations. This is actually a huge problem, especially in eastern Europe, where many countries are already unstable in their own right, and a sudden influx of refugees doesn’t really help them. The WTO, realistically, would not have much to say on this issue, but I myself had a lot to say, as many of the refugees go to Europe, and that’s where I’m from. I’m also personally very against discrimination, but very much for tight security and lots of scrutiny, and this is simply because many refugees come from low-income families, and often find it very hard to assimilate into the new country, making them perhaps at risk to become even lower income than they already were, and thus can be detrimental to the economy of the host country. What this resolution did was to assess each individual refugee and send them to the country that best fit them, meaning, even if it was a country already struggling with employment, such as Macedonia, there was basically nothing they could do about it the influx of refugees.

Some of the most notable things I have done so far include making some very good POIs (Points of Information - comments or questions on a delegate's speech), and collaborating with my group to come up with perhaps the best resolution I have ever worked on, and maybe even the best in the entire committee, which will focus on micro-finance and encouraging entrepreneurship. I am excited to see my resolution debated and I wonder what other delegates will think of it, and how they will try to improve it with their amendments.

More updates on the way!

- Victor Skjoldby