I helped negotiate with other counsels and provided advice to my own. I spoke a few times within the formal negotiations, however I left most of the speaking to Heath and gave him ideas of what to say.
I felt prepared from all the material given to me about my countries stance and the issue at a whole. I did not feel we accomplished much because at the beginning everyone was very motivated to get their own goals accomplished but toward the end everyone just gave in to an agreement that would need to be stronger in the real world. I understand that with time constraints and our education level it was unlikely we could come to a real world solution. However, that is what would make me think we were truly successful.
I enjoyed being able to talk to all the different and counsels and I liked how dedicated everyone was to there counsels point of view and did not cave to their own personal opinions. I feel that was a really cool and important thing to force people to understand and work with an opinion they don’t necessarily agree with.
I struggle to not just scream things out when the arguments got intense and to do it formally. I also really don’t like the question thing during formal negotiations. I also struggled a little to keep my own opinions out and just work for towards the goal of my own country, however I believe I did a good job but it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.
I think to make the simulation better would be to allow students to come in with pre made resolutions. In Hungary we did this and it was a great starting point for all the arguments and also allowed counsels to learn about there countries stance more intensely because they had to form a resolution on their own that would agree with their stance but also often make it sound appealing to the other counsels. Furthermore, it also save time and allows for more discussion and argument since we are so limited to time in the classroom.
I learned how difficult it would be to solve this type of refugee crises. It is almost impossible to force a country to comply with your demands. For example at the end of the simulation their were a lot of things in the resolution that Budan would never agree to and the UN has no way to make them because they are their own sovereign nation. So while the UN is a great place for countries to express their points of view I don’t think it truly has any real power over its member states. Other than to put pressure on them through sanctions but in Budans case it didn’t matter they had everything they needed.