HNMUN Review Part 2: The Bitter

“Because without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain't as sweet.”
From the movie, “Vanilla Sky”

In my last post, I treated the sweet parts of the Harvard National Model United Nations Conference (HNMUN). Unfortunately, many sweet parts of the conference had a bitter aftertaste, and that’s what I’m going to tease out here.

Before I begin, however, please know that I write this post purely reflects my personal opinions and not those of the Yale MUN team. More importantly, I acknowledge and respect the work of the HNMUN Secretariat and staff, which is why I wrote the sweet part first, and I mean this post in no way to disparage their efforts or achievements.

"Cash Cow" Committees

In my last post, I wrote that Harvard’s size is an asset, but it is also a liability. HNMUN features several 300-person double-delegate General Assembly committees. From the perspective of a conference organizer, huge committees are great because you can dramatically increase attendance—and profits—with a minimal amount of committee resources, namely dais staff. That’s why these are called “cash cow” committees.

But for most delegates in huge committees, the experience is tiresome. The size of the committee limits participation. At most, delegates will give 2 or 3 speeches throughout the entire conference, if that. This ends up demoralizing most delegates, who end up sitting in the back of room and just stop caring.

For those who aren’t demoralized and are trying to win an award, they have to climb over one another trying to get the attention of the dais. During unmoderated caucus, where most of the draft resolution process takes place, the director can’t be everywhere at once, and he typically does not have enough staff to walk around and watch what’s going on. He may not have anyone doing that at all, which was apparently true in a few committees this year. This situation encourages delegates to be as aggressive as possible in an attempt to win the director’s attention.

Cutthroat Competition

By aggressive, I don’t mean just being undiplomatic and shouting down other delegates in caucus. I was told about one instance where a delegate in a large committee had typed up a draft resolution on their laptop with the support of a sizable caucus bloc. He turned off his laptop, set it down, and got up to speak to another delegate nearby. When he returned, he realized that someone had turned on his laptop, saved the draft resolution to a USB key, and submitted it to the director, effectively stealing his credit for drafting the resolution.

Worse still, such cutthroat competition sometimes translates into a complete lack of respect for other delegates. In another committee, a delegate was typing a draft resolution with the support of her caucus bloc. Another delegate had the USB key on which the draft resolution was to be submitted to the director. When the first delegate asked for the USB key, this delegate put it in his mouth and spit it at her. This situation was eventually handled by the director, the head delegates of both of their respective teams, and even the Secretary-General, but apparently the first delegate was so traumatized that she missed one session of committee.

International Delegates

Indeed, competition at Harvard has become increasingly aggressive ever since my freshman year. Increased size alone does not account for this. Rather, I think that the increased number of international students attending the conference has made it more competitive.

I'm certainly not suggesting that international delegates steal USB keys or spit at other delegates. In my last post, I wrote that the international character of HNMUN makes it very exciting, and I still think that’s true. But after participating in and watching a number of committees, I have observed that international delegates who are trying to win awards typically employ very aggressive tactics.

In my own committee, I made a speech criticizing the ideas of an international delegate. Afterwards, she sent me a rude note saying that I had no desire for true UN reform, our topic. This delegate was very domineering and asserted herself at every caucus bloc, even when uninvited. Other international delegates in my committee constantly disputed the smallest, most inconsequential points on draft resolutions and amendments. They were essentially stalling for time while their co-delegates wrote and submitted their own amendments, which mostly failed anyway.

In a few large committees, Spanish replaced English as lingua franca. The number of Spanish-speaking delegates in these committees made it possible for them to caucus together exclusively and push through their draft resolutions. Delegates who did not speak Spanish in these committees were at a disadvantage.

The reasons behind such aggression are understandable. According to friends on Venezuelan delegations, winning an English language debate competition scores huge points on their resumes. While I may be competing for an award, they are competing for a job. Moreover, international students pay tons of money and travel thousands of miles to come to the conference. I met one graduate student from the Netherlands who prepared all year and took MUN very seriously as an exercise in diplomacy. Such students, with so much at stake, can’t afford to walk away with nothing.

Aside from ambition, a Turkish delegate pointed out to me that the rules of procedure at American conferences actually facilitate competition, not cooperation. Apparently, the rules regarding resolutions at European MUN conferences encourage delegates to work together. This stands in contrast to HNMUN's 1 resolution per topic policy, which forces delegates to fight over combining their draft resolutions. This Turkish delegate also remarked that students are not given awards at European conferences per se, but rather the best delegates are invited back to chair their committees the following year, which is viewed as a real honor.

If this is true, then I imagine that international delegates, coming from a more cooperative MUN environment, might be simply overestimating or misjudging the level or style of competition required to "win" American MUN conferences. Although I have also heard that Latin American MUN is very intense anyway, much moreso than anything held in the United States, so Latin American delegates may simply be competing as they would at any conference.

I don't know much about these differences personally, but I would love to have someone write a post comparing American-style MUN with the rest of the world. We learn so much about other countries through MUN, why don't we learn about MUN in other countries?

Addressing "Externalities"

These two aspects of the conference—its size and international character—seem to have increased gradually over the years. Their corresponding advantages and disadvantages have consequently increased as well. At this point, however, I think the latter has outpaced the former.

I am not saying that the conference is simply too large and too international; those aspects are not intrinsically bad. I’m saying that the effects of constantly increasing those aspects—their “externalities,” if you will—have not been adequately addressed—or perhaps not even realized—by the Secretariat.

The solution, I propose, is not shrinking the conference or barring international schools, but in addressing these negative externalities. Regarding size, HNMUN should break up the overtly large committees into still large but more manageable ones. One proposal is to convene countries by regional blocs first, formally moderated by the staff, allow delegates to develop bloc-wide resolutions, and then convene as an entire committee on Saturday in order to iron out differences. Another option is to break up the committee into sub-committees first, devised according to a framework set in the position paper. Co-delegates would then have to split the work between drafting the operative clauses in certain sub-committees and walking around to make sure they complement one another.

Look at it this way: it’s not like the real United Nations sits down to debate as a 192-member body. Resolutions are drafted in sub-committees and cloak rooms; the real work is done behind the scenes. Heck, most of the negotiation takes place not in hallways or committee rooms but at receptions and cocktail parties (okay, maybe that part I made up…maybe…)

Regarding competition, perhaps someone should study whether American rules of procedure foster competition in and of themselves. I know that HNMUN did revise its rules this year, but I don't think it addressed this particular point, as evidenced by the increased level of competition.

In the meantime, the HNMUN staff needs to hold delegates accountable for their chicanery; anything less rewards it. The director and his dais staff certainly need to walk around during unmoderated caucus. But in large committees, you need a lot more people to walk around and take notes. Ideally, there should be one assistant director for every draft resolution. In large GA committees with 10 resolutions, that’s 10 assistant directors. This may seem excessive, but how else do you expect to keep track of what’s going on in huge committees?

Most importantly, awards should not go to delegates who are undiplomatic and steal other people’s draft resolutions, which is entirely against HNMUN's awards policy. Yet in large committees with many aggressive delegates and few dais staff to watch them all, this is what seems to happen, and that really leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Conclusion

There are more things I could write about regarding what left me bitter about this year's HNMUN, but for the sake of this post, I just want to offer my most constructive criticisms. I hope that I've been fair.

For the record, I did contact the Secretary-General and my director regarding a few of my concerns. They responded congenially and took my inquiries seriously, saying that they would look into these matters. More importantly, I felt like they cared about my concerns. From a business perspective, such understanding is the hallmark of customer service. Although I may have disagreements with how the conference is run, I have nothing but respect for the Secretary-General and my director after the way in which they handled my inquiries.

The reason I write these reviews is that there is a lack of accountability and transparency regarding all of our conferences, which impedes their collective improvement. Sure, there are Head Delegate meetings and end-of-conference evaluations, but there will be no thoughtful outside analysis of our conferences without a public place in which to address them. I hope this website provides such a place. Feel free to leave your own comments below.

To end, let me put it this way. All weekend long, my committee debated UN reform. Delegates gave passionate speeches and proposed thrilling ideas calling for change. If “Model” UN truly seeks to emulate the UN, shouldn’t we, as an MUN community, call for change, too? I am afraid, however, that MUN reform, specifically regarding accountability and transparency, will either take too long or not at all, in which case MUN will actually have succeeded in modeling the UN. Now that would be truly ironic.