Special Committee 1 (SpC1)

(Non Ad Hoc)

The Special Committees are special in more ways than one. As they are not an expressed committee in the actual UN, these committees are here as a way to bring important issues to light that do not particularly slot into any specific committee that exists in the real UN. 

This of course, does not mean that they are any less important, as the issues discussed are still very pressing and prevalent, what the special committees do allow however, is a medium wherein these issues can be debated easier and this year, the issues are all but boring.

As this is a special committee, instead of this being a place of background information about its real world counterpart, here the issues will briefly be explained in more detail. 

Issue 1: Discussing the weaponization of fossil fuels as an energy source.

At the time of writing this, the war in Ukraine is, tragically, still an ongoing issue, the impacts of which are being felt around the globe. In the war, the Russian Federation has been using fossil fuels, especially gas, to ensure that mainly European involvement stays limited. Due to the dependency that most of Europe has on Russian gas, this is an excellent example of the weaponization of that dependency. Hopefully, by the time HMUN 2023 rolls around, there will be peace in Ukraine once more, but the issue will still be prevalent. How do you prevent the weaponization of something so critically important to so many countries, that if threatened, they will have no choice but to submit. How do you ensure that Member States cannot go unpunished as long as they have near full control over a fuel that keeps a nation running. These and many more are the questions you will be debating over with this issue.

Issue 2: Regulating the social and political power of corporations.

Amazon, Uber, Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook, all these large corporations have a thing in common, something often pointed out as a huge issue, but rarely explicitly discussed. These corporations all have a large amount of power. Power over our lives, our decisions, sometimes even our governments. The question then of course is, should they have this power and if not, how do you stop them? There have been ample cases where these corporations have shown, intentional or not, just how much power they wield. Take for example Facebook, who, a while back, mentioned that Russian bots may have used Facebook as a means to interfere with the United States elections, and had done so successfully. Or take Tik Tok, who has long been accused of leaking user data to the Chinese government and many many more, which you will undoubtedly find in your research reports. This is an issue that politicians underestimate and it is up to you, delegate, to debate about the serious question on the future of corporations.

Issue 3: Assessing the political and military power of the UN.

Almost every major decision the UN makes that is covered in the news, ends with the presenter or journalist lamenting the lack of enforcement the UN has. If you yourself have been a delegate before, you might have even noticed this yourself. Every committee besides the Security Council, must use words such as recommends or advised. Enforcement is a contentious topic that has to be addressed to understand if the very thing HMUN emulates is even something wished to be emulated. Is the UN a failed experiment with no help of redemption, is it a perfect example of worldwide cooperation, or is it somewhere in between? And if so, how would you fix it? This and much more will be discussed during this issue.