represented by Anne Büchel and Matisse Belusa

Although not being part of the UN system, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a major actor in the field of international security: Founded in 1949 as a collective defence alliance against the USSR, NATO has since evolved into an organisation dealing with multi-faceted security threats such as terrorism, genocide, or nuclear proliferation, and is increasingly involved in complex state-building missions in- and outside the Euro-Atlantic area. With its 28 Member States, NATO is not only a very small organisation compared to other committees present at NMUN, it is also one of the few consensus committees, where just one negative vote can topple an entire resolution. Both of these facts made working in NATO a challenging, yet ultimately rewarding experience for all participating delegates.

The first major task of the committee, the agenda-setting, proceeded faster than expected: Between NATO’s conception of state-building, NATO’s role in Afghanistan, and NATO’s engagement with other international organisations, almost all delegations strongly favoured the Afghanistan mission as the most immediate concern for NATO, and the committee could start working on the issue right away. There soon emerged several working groups dealing with different aspects of the mission: Besides the most pressing issue – the security situation -, there were groups working on the transition phase from the NATO-led Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) to local authorities, on how to combat the drug industry and provide alternative livelihoods for the Afghan population, on agricultural development as a precondition for lasting peace and stability, and on governance issues such as strengthening local institutions, while improving NATO’s interaction with local, national, and international actors to help improving state effectiveness.

Spain, as the leader of one PRT in the Western Province of Badghis, where it is heavily involved in the civil reconstruction, was particularly involved in the working group on the role of the PRTs, and tried to especially emphasise the crucial importance of education as a building block for a strong civil society in Afghanistan. Furthermore, as an advocate of a strong human rights-oriented foreign policy, Spain soon grew concerned about the lack of encouragement for stronger democratic institutions and processes in Afghanistan. Calling upon all NATO Members to remember and stay true to the core value of the Alliance, Spain then worked closely together with countries such as Iceland, Denmark, and Germany to include a stronger appeal to the strengthening of democracy in Afghanistan, all the while making it clear that NATO fully respects the sovereignty and autonomy of the Afghan population.

Trying to convince countries, which were strongly opposed to any reference that could be seen as interfering within the domestic affairs of Afghanistan, that stressing the inherent value of democracy as a form of government did not equal prescribing it to the Afghans then became a major focus of the committee work of Spain and its allies. In this connection, collaborating with supporters proved to be just as stimulating as debating with opponents: Hearing from other delegates where their concerns with the wording or the content of a particular phrase of the emerging working papers lay, discussing different interpretations, working on resolving them and reaching a consensus acceptable to everyone turned out to be a particularly interesting aspect of the negotiations.

However, despite all previous efforts, when the six draft resolutions were printed and distributed, the hectic part of the working process really began: Seeing the resolutions in their entirety – some of them for the very first time –, all delegations discovered new (and old) contentious issues they wanted to see resolved, while at the same time being approached from other delegations with the same interest. Between seeking reassurance from the other delegations about one’s own draft, rewriting and enhancing it to resolve all previously encountered concerns, and trying to make changes in other resolutions, a flood of amendments poured over the committee chair’s desk, so that even the most arduous delegates lost count of everything that was being changed at one point.

Two draft resolutions emerged as the most controversial ones: The one dealing with agricultural development in Afghanistan, which many delegations felt lay outside of NATO’s mandate in Afghanistan, and, unsurprisingly, the draft focusing on governance, where opposition seemed to centre around one perambulatory clause ‘reaffirming that democracy and the rule of law serve in every state as a basis for enduring peace and stability’ and one expressing concern about ‘the ongoing shortcomings of the Afghan democratic system’, as well as several propositions for NATO to encourage democratic practices and gender equality in its dealings with local authorities. Many feverish last-minute amendments and lobbying efforts later, the time had finally run out and the committee moved to vote on the draft resolutions.

The first resolutions on security, the role of the PRTs, and on combating the drug trade in Afghanistan all passed without difficulty. The first setback came when the ambitious resolution dealing with the security dimension of agricultural development failed with several negative votes. Then, at the very end and without any leverage regarding the previous resolutions, the governance resolution was up. The roll call vote started off promisingly when major prior critics such as Romania either abstained, or, in the case of Luxemburg, even approved the draft. Toward the end, however, it was the United Kingdom that introduced a series of vetoes from Poland, the UK itself, and the United States, which ultimately let the resolution fall through.

Nevertheless, as the delegates explained afterwards, the final opposition had more to do with the fact that the time to make some more adjustments had simply run out than with substantial disagreements about the content of the resolution. And not even the negative vote could take away from the spirit of collaboration and the constructive working atmosphere that had reigned throughout the negotiation process. Rather, it emphasised one valuable lesson the conference simulation has instilled in us: That any disagreement can be solved when there is willingness, and most importantly, when the parties always and continuously communicate with each other about emerging (or persisting) problems.

So, in the end, NMUN proved to be not only a realistic, but also an instructive and interesting glimpse into the practice of international negotiations. We experienced first-hand how motivating it was to work on drafting resolutions with other, like-minded delegations and to incorporate a variety of strong ideas and positions into one framework. We came to know the fascinating process of discussing concepts and propositions of how a particular problem should be addressed according to other participants, trying to combine many differing viewpoints into the best workable solution. We also saw how difficult it was to reconcile conflicting positions when even the slightest detail could become a cause for concern to other parties, threatening to invalidate much of the accord reached so far. We learned about the difficulties of building a consensus between 28 Member States – each with their own ideas, interests, and intentions – and can only imagine the humongous task of bringing international conferences with all 192 UN Member States to a successful conclusion.

Ultimately, the work in the committee really gave us a good impression of the most frustrating, yet also of the most elevating moments of international negotiations and made the 2010 NMUN an altogether valuable and enjoyable experience for us.