The GA Committees develop resolutions based on their respective title (i.e. The Legal Committee debates legal issues) that may be forwarded to the General Assembly for consideration.  Since resolutions may be forwarded to the General Assembly, delegates from these committees may be allowed to address the General Assembly, but are not guaranteed that right. Therefore all comments and discussion points from a country of this committee should be forwarded to their General Assembly Ambassador. 
 

Topic 1: Child Labor

For many countries around the world, fast, easy, and inexpensive economic productivity rates are a product of Child Labor. Child Labor, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), refers to children under the age of 12 engaging in any economic work activities, and children from ages 12-14 working in harmful conditions. It includes all children who are forcefully recruited, enslaved, trafficked, prostituted, subjected to illegal activities, and put into hazardous work conditions. Child Labor is notably different than Child Work. Child Work, again by the ILO, pertains to work a child over 12 participates in that does not negatively interfere or disrupt their health or education.

UNICEF estimates that about 218 million children from ages 5-17 engage in Child Labor. The regions that partake in the most Child Labor are the Asian and Pacific regions. These places have 127.3 million child workers from the ages 5-14. Other statistics from UNICEF state that one in every three children in Sub-Saharan Africa below the age of 15 works, 15 percent of the children in North Africa and the Middle East work, and there are 17.4 million child workers in Latin America and the Caribbean. Furthermore, because approximately 2.5 million children are working in transition or industrialized economies, countries can indirectly encourage Child Labor by partaking in the trade of goods manufactured by industries that utilize child workers.

Child Labor takes many different forms. The majority, 70 percent, of children engaged in child labor work in agriculture. 126 million child workers are believed to be exposed to harmful situations and conditions such as working in mines, with chemicals/pesticides, and with dangerous machinery.

Many children engaged in child labor, especially girls that work as domestic servants, are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Statistics from UNICEF estimate that 1.2 million children are trafficked, 0.3 million are forced to into armed conflict, 1.8 million into prostitution or pornography, and 5.7 million are forced into some form of slavery such as debt bondage.

While many countries, such as Canada, Denmark, USA, and Italy, support the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), other countries, such as India and Nicaragua, find Child Labor a challenge to overcome, while still others believe it is a feasible solution to maintain their economy despite its disregard to a child’s safety and education.

Questions:

• Does your country engage in Child Labor directly? Does it engage in it indirectly through trade?
• Is your country pro or con IPEC?
• What legislation is there specific to your country in regards to Child Labor? In regards to its violators? Is this legislation respected or disregarded?
• To what extent does the role of education take in Child Labor?
• Does, and if so when, the general welfare of a country merit compromising a child’s rights?
  

Works Cited:
“Child Labour.” Child Protection from Violence, Exploitation, and Abuse. UNICEF 23 April 2007. < http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_childlabour.html>

“Has Your Country Ratified?” ILO-International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour:IPEC. ILO 23 April 2007. <http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/ipec/>

“SIMPOC.” ILO-International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour:IPEC. ILO 23 April 2007. < http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/ipec/simpoc/factsheet.htm >

Topic 2: Integration of Cultural Minorities

Few of the world's countries are culturally, religiously, or ethnically homogeneous; almost all countries have significant minority groups. Many are even composed of three or more groups of similar size. This often leads to turmoil, hindering development and sowing resentment in many areas, most recently in Africa and Asia. The current and past crises in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Darfur, Chechnya, Turkey, and Kashmir, among others, all have one thing in common: they all have sizable minority groups which resent perceived domination by one or more other groups in the country. In none of these countries does one group dominate demographically.

Modern political policy wishes to avert the unrest which results when one ethnic group dominates the life of the country, particularly in government. It attempts to do this by various internal mechanisms, such as devolving power to the various minority groups, or orchestrating other power-sharing arrangements as outlined here. This has been successfully done or is being done in many areas, such as Bosnia, Serbia, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Canada, Nigeria, and parts of India and Russia. These arrangements range from American-style federalism, to Swiss-style Confederation, to British devolution of power to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, to Russian asymmetrical federalism. Such arrangements have even been proposed for quelling the sectarian violence in Iraq, both by scholars and politicians. It can also take a form of devolution in which a central state devolves substantial powers to a separated area, ranging from the British dominion system, the relationship of Denmark and Greenland, and the US' relationship in relation to Puerto Rico. More modest reforms can be taken, such as instating an electoral system in which minority groups are guaranteed representation in proportion to their numbers, as has been done in both New Zealand to accommodate the Maori, and in Northern Ireland to accommodate Catholics.

However, the United Nations cannot force a country to undertake any of these arrangements. Any approach taken by the UN would have to be of an internationalist character. The UN possesses little power to intervene in the affairs of sovereign states. It does, however, have much coercive power. It can offer benefits to those countries which do accommodate their minorities, and pressure those which do not to do so. It can bring countries to the bargaining table, and it can mediate through the use of peacekeepers in stopping armed conflict in trouble spots so that a lasting political solution may be created. Finally, it can lend a guiding hand of expertise to those countries which are struggling to accommodate minority groups, provided by those which have accommodated all of their citizens and formed a lasting, viable nation-state.

Questions:

• Are there any sizable ethnic, religious, or cultural minorities which have been living within your country? What is their relationship with the central government? Have they been successfully accommodated such that they feel a part of the national group?
• What have your country's policies been in relation to the accommodation of minorities? What approaches have and have not worked?
• What interest, if any, does your country feel it has in the integration of particular minorities into other nations? What action, if any, has it taken towards this end?

Works Cited:
K. C. Wheare, The Status of Westminster and Dominion Status (Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press, 1949)

Ugo M. Amoretti and Nancy Bermeo, Federalism and Territorial Cleavages (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Univ. Press, 2004)

Arend Lijphart. Patterns of Democracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1999)
Brendan O'Leary, “Multi-national Federalism, Federacy, Power-Sharing & the Kurds of Iraq,” updated 12 September 2003, <http://old.krg.org/docs/federalism/federalism-iraqi-kurds-paper-sep03.pdf> (cited 25 April 2007)

Bose, Sumantra. Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and Internationalist Intervention (New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002)

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Topic 3: Freedom of the Press

More than one-third of the world's people live in countries where there is no press freedom. These countries employ state-run news organizations to promote propaganda so critical in maintaining their political power. Very often they use police, the military, or intelligence agencies to suppress attempts made by the media or individual journalists to challenge the approved "government line" on contentious issues.

Holding government leaders accountable to the people, publicizing issues that need attention, educating citizens so they can make informed decisions and connecting people with each other in a civil society are four essential roles that the free press serves. Today the expansion of the internet and other technological advances in communication are helping journalists circumvent many of these government restrictions.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in 1948 by The United Nations General Assembly) states that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” The international non-government organization, Reporters without Borders states that it draws its inspiration from Article 19 and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organization's assessment of their press freedom records. The most recent lists ranked Cuba, Korea, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Peoples Republic of China (Mainland) and Ethiopia among countries with the lowest rankings. Examples of press violations include the Chinese government suppressing information about of the SARS epidemic and the sixty-one journalists arrested in Cuba in 2003, the majority of whom are still in prison.

Today, technological advances such as the internet provide journalists with inventive, new ways to exploit technology and stay one step ahead of the generally slower moving government institutions. These governments are responding by deploying increasingly sophisticated technology of their own, a notable example being China's attempts to impose control through a state run internet service provider and the recent agreement that Google made to censor its search services in China.

Questions:

• How can organizations help persuade companies such as Google not give in to government pressures to censor information?
• What steps can the United Nations take to further promote use of the internet to journalists in developing countries?

Works Cited:
www.unesco.org: Communication and Information Section

http://www.gg.ca/media/doc.asp?lang=e&DocID=4757

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/backnews/archives/taiwan/2007129/101166.htm

http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=50

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press

New York Times article: Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem)

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