Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SC PDF
SC PDF
SECURITY COUNCIL
Crisis of the treaty of non-
proliferation of nuclear
weapons and future
tendencies
Chairs
of the Security Council
SYMUN 2019
2
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
Contents
I. WELCOME LETTER.
Dear delegates,
It is a pleasure for this presidency to welcome you to this new edition of SYMUN. In
just a few months we will meet in the beautiful capital of Spain deploying the most
refine diplomatic arts in order to evaluate and reinforce the Treaty of Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The fate of not only our race, but also of the planet lies in the capacity the countries
have to reach agreements in the wind of a national-sovereignty respectful forum,
and the implication that their governing authorities have to fulfil those deals.
We highly recommend you to get used to the terms and facts that will be explained
in this Study Guide, as they will provide the knowledge needed and expected from
you as delegates to be able to address such an important discussion.
Notwithstanding, this is just some of the basics to understand this problematic around
nuclear weapons, and for this reason you must expand your knowledge through
your own searching.
3
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
Finally, if you have any doubts regarding any point of the guide or the model itself,
please do not hesitate to contact us at any moment, we are here to help you.
Yours sincerely,
4
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
The United Nations Security Council is one of the six main organs of the United
Nations. According to the Charter, its principal responsibility is to ensure the
maintenance of international peace and security.
General
Assembly
International
Security
Court of Council
Justice
MAIN
ORGANS
The Economic
Trusteeship and Social
Council Council
The
Secretariat
The UNSC is formed by fifteen states, each one has one vote. Of the members, five
of them – United States of America, People’s Republic of China, the Russian
Federation, Republic of France and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland – are permanent and have veto power. This means that if any of them votes
against a substantive matter1 – i.e. a draft resolution – it will automatically not pass,
1
The power of veto just applies to substantive matters and not to procedural ones. (check the rules of procedure
to understand the difference between these two types of voting)
5
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
Under article 25 of the UN Charter resolutions adopted by the Security Council are
binding. This means that all members of the United Nations are obligated to accept
and implement the decisions reached by the Council2. This is the only organ of the
UN that has this power, other bodies are just entitled to make recommendations to
member states.
Together with ensuring the maintenance of international peace and security, the
Security Council is also committed under the Charter to develop friendly relations
2
In the following link all UNSC resolutions can be found
https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/resolutions-0
6
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
- send a mission;
- request the Secretary General to use his good offices to achieve a pacific
solution of the dispute.
When a dispute escalates to hostilities the Council must try to bring them to an end
as soon as possible, in this situation the UNSC may:
7
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
- blockade;
It is very important that you, as delegates of the Security Council, understand the
functioning of this committee. Before the conference you must be familiar with the
following items:
- what implies to have veto power and who has this power;
8
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
‘The Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is no more. But the post-Cold War world is
decidedly not post-nuclear’
Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has been undertaken
efforts to reduce down to zero the number of nuclear stockpiles. To date, these
attempts have been unsuccessful and the reality is that humankind is still exposed
to the danger of a nuclear strike. According to a survey of nuclear experts
completed by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2005, the world faced
a 29% probability of nuclear war within the following decade.
Nuclear threats remain crucial to relations between many states and threaten to
become even more important. The spread of nuclear weapons will likely generate
two catastrophic effects. The first one is the danger that terrorist groups join the
nuclear arena, this particular threat began to be concerned about after the events
of 9/11. Despite the followers of Osama bin Laden have not yet endeavored to
initiate a nuclear attack, the truth is that taking into account the relative quick and
easy availability of military supplies and enriched uranium, a nuclear weapon could
be assembled in a matter of months. The immediate consequences that an attack
of this kind would have in a city like Delhi or New York is almost impossible to imagine.
The second effect of the spread of nuclear weapons is indeed the proliferation of
threats to use them. As more states acquire nuclear arsenal to overcome insecurity
or just as means to enhance their prestige, global security will become more
unstable and the possibilities to revert this situation will become even harder.
9
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
In August 1945 the first atomic bomb was unleashed on the mainland of the island
of Japan. This moment marked a turning point in the history of war and in the history
of humanity, up to this date the man had not seen anything as destructive. The
nuclear age had begun and since then the race has not stopped yet. In the past
60 years, 128,000 nuclear weapons have been produced – 98% of the total by the
United States and by the former Soviet Union. Nowadays the ‘nuclear club’ is
composed by nine states: the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, India,
Pakistan, China, Israel and North Korea. Also, we must bear in mind that currently
around 15 more countries have enough enriched uranium on hand which could
easily build a nuclear weapons, being one of the biggest Iran.
Image 1 Source: Davenport, K, & Reif. K. (2019). Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What
at a Glance
10
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
In order to understand the problematic that the nuclear age possesses to the world
it is indispensable to understand the science behind nuclear weapons and how they
differ for conventional ones, its history and background. In the following sections we
will learn about these topics.
Atomic energy is the source of power used for nuclear reactors and nuclear
weapons. This type of energy comes from the splitting – fission – or joining – fusion –
of atoms. One must bear in mind that this is a very complex source of energy
because of the characteristics of the atom itself.
Besides the magnitude of the explosion and the thermal heat generated, a nuclear
explosion also delivers radioactivity. This lasts for just a few seconds, but its
dangerousness is extended over years. The emissions of radiation are exclusive to
nuclear weapons. Of the sum of all energy released in a nuclear explosion around
85% of the total is in the form of shock and hear and 15% is compound by the
different types of radiations emitted.
11
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
12
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
One of the main proves of the superlative importance of the NPT is noticeable in the
article VIII, paragraph 3, that envisages a review of the operation of the Treaty every
five years, a provision which was reaffirmed by the States parties at the 1995 NPT
Review and Extension Conference:
Five years after the entry into force of this Treaty, a conference of Parties to the
Treaty shall be held in Geneva, Switzerland, in order to review the operation of this
Treaty with a view to assuring that the purposes of the Preamble and the provisions
of the Treaty are being realized. At intervals of five years thereafter, a majority of the
Parties to the Treaty may obtain, by submitting a proposal to this effect to the
Depositary Governments, the convening of further conferences with the same
objective of reviewing the operation of the Treaty.
Giving a chance for a historical in-depth look, the 1995 Review Conference is
considered as the most successful international meeting regarding nuclear
disarmament. For the first time, three specific measures were identified as crucial.
These were: (1) negotiations on a Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty no later than 1996;
(2) conclusion of negotiations on a convention banning production of fissile
materials, and (3) determined pursuit by nuclear weapon states of systematic and
progressive efforts to reduce and further eliminate these weapons. In addition, this
conference, regarding the area of peaceful use of nuclear energy, stablishes the
right of Non - Nuclear Weapons Countries (NNWC) to “develop research,
production and uses of nuclear energy” consistent in articles I, II and III of the NPT.
And for this reason, it should be noted that this Conference had called a preferential
treatment in nuclear cooperation for the NNWS parties to the treaty. It was against
these yardsticks that the NPT was indefinitely extended in 1995.
13
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
The 2000 Review Conference further reiterated the 1995 commitments. Indeed, this
conference went a step further in identifying the ‘tangibles’ actions that countries
could achieve: the ‘13-practical’steps which were floated by the New Agenda
Coalition (NAC): states formed in 1998 comprising of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico,
New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden. These ‘13-practical-steps’ or the ‘Action
Plan’ included the signing of the CTBT, FMCT, along with efforts to reduce and further
eliminate nuclear weapons. These were also identified as the areas on which future
progress towards meeting Article VI was possible.
Five years after the 2000 NPT Rev Con, new rationales for retaining nuclear weapons
have been discovered. The US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) of 2002 clearly stated
that nuclear weapons would constitute an important component of the US military
doctrine. Moreover, the US has stated that it would view the Treaty on Strategic
Offensive Reductions (SORT) to be an important step towards disarmament. This
treaty was signed by the Russian and US presidents at the Moscow Summit on May
24, 2002 wherein both sides agreed to reduce the levels of their strategic nuclear
warheads to 1,700-2,200. However, it should be understood in the context of the
treaty that ‘reduction of strategic forces’ is actually decreasing the ‘status of
readiness’ of strategic weapons.
14
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
As it was already stated before, the IAEA is named in the NPT as the safeguards of
the compliance of its mandates. As so, it is an international organization that seeks
the promotion of peaceful use of nuclear energy. Although this organism has been
introduced and perfectly integrated in the non – proliferation regime, its creation
dates from 1957, under President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” plan.
However, this agency has been assigned with two other missions apart from
checking the compliment of the Treaty, which are:
Peaceful uses:
As it is stated in Article II of the IAEA Statute, its objective is “to accelerate and
enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity
throughout the world”, having as primary functions research and development,
securing save materials, services and facilities for Member States, having half of its
departments focused on these tasks.
Safeguards:
In Article II of the EAEA Statute and in the NPT it is clearly stablished that the Agency
is authorized not only to promote safe use of nuclear technology, but also to ensure
that the research done is, as far as it is able, not used in such a way as to further any
military purpose; and to apply safeguards, at the request of the parties, to any
bilateral or multilateral arrangement, or at the request of a State, to any of that
State's activities in the field of atomic energy. There is a single Department assigned
with this mission.
15
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
Nuclear safety:
As it could be expected from such an international organism, the main priority of the
Agency is safety, and so implementing improvements in nuclear plants in order to
make them more secure has been one of the key points in the interventions of the
IAEA. Just after the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, the agency decided to
double the resources used to fulfill this task.
The deal, that was signed in Vienna, July 2015 by the P5, Germany and Iran and
entered into force in 2016 had, as a major priority, to extend the time needed by
Iran to create, if ever wanted, the nuclear weapon. The immediate consequence?
As, David Albright, Director of the Institute for Science and International Security in
Washington, D.C state, by 2017 Teheran needed at least one year to create a
nuclear warhead, while in 2014 it would have taken 2 to 3 months . 3
The defenders of the deal, headed by former President Barak Obama and the E.U.
argued that this was the safer method to avoid the development of a new nuclear
State and a nuclear race in the most volatile region of the world.
3
"Iran | isis-reports | Institute for Science and International Security", 2018
16
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
On the other side, its detractors, mainly President Donald Trump, Israel and Saudi
Arabia, said that these were insufficient measures, as long as they provided the
“regime” monetary oxygen and did not addressed the problematic of the support
given to terrorist groups and its ballistic program.
And so, in May 2018, Trump’s administration decided unilaterally to break the deal
with Iran, and to reactivate the sanctions to Teheran. As a response, the Iranian
government resumed the nuclear development, warning that if the United States
did not fulfil its own – imposed agreements they had no reason to respect the deal.
What came later, it is, unfortunately, a very well – known story: a fast rise in the
tension between the two administrations took place. Deployment of troops and
maneuvers near Iranian coast, the arrest of oil tankers from both sides are just a few
examples of the consequences.
e. COUNTRY PERSPECTIVES
China, which possesses approximately 260 nuclear weapons, did not participate in
the negotiation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It abstained
from voting on the UN General Assembly resolution in 2016 that established the
mandate for nations to negotiate the treaty. Although it regularly declares its
support for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons, its true commitment
to nuclear disarmament remains in serious doubt. It has failed to fulfil its legally
binding disarmament obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The United Kingdom, which possesses approximately 215 nuclear weapons, did not
participate in the negotiation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons. It has said that it intends never to join the treaty. It voted against the UN
17
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
General Assembly resolution in 2016 that established the mandate for nations to
negotiate the treaty. It has failed to fulfil its legally binding disarmament obligations
under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The United States, which possesses approximately 6,800 nuclear weapons, did not
participate in the negotiation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons. It has said that it intends never to join the treaty. It voted against the UN
General Assembly resolution in 2016 that established the mandate for nations to
negotiate the treaty. It has failed to fulfil its legally binding disarmament obligations
under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
- Russian Federation
Russia, which possesses approximately 7,000 nuclear weapons, did not participate
in the negotiation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It voted
against the UN General Assembly resolution in 2016 that established the mandate
for nations to negotiate the treaty. It has failed to fulfil its legally binding disarmament
obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
- French Republic
France, which possesses approximately 300 nuclear weapons, did not participate in
the negotiation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It has said
that it intends never to join the treaty. It voted against the UN General Assembly
resolution in 2016 that established the mandate for nations to negotiate the treaty.
It has failed to fulfil its legally binding disarmament obligations under the Non-
Proliferation Treaty.
18
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
Germany, which hosts US nuclear weapons on its territory, did not participate in the
negotiation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It voted against
the UN General Assembly resolution in 2016 that established the mandate for nations
to negotiate the treaty. It claims that US nuclear weapons are essential for its
security.
- Kingdom of Belgium
Belgium, which hosts US nuclear weapons on its territory, did not participate in the
negotiation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It voted against
the UN General Assembly resolution in 2016 that established the mandate for nations
to negotiate the treaty. It claims that US nuclear weapons are essential for its
security.
- Còte d’Ivore
- Dominican Republic
19
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
- Republic of Indonesia
- State of Kuwait
- Republic of Peru
- Republic of Poland
Poland did not participate in the negotiation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons. It voted against the UN General Assembly resolution in 2016 that
established the mandate for nations to negotiate the treaty. It claims that US nuclear
weapons are essential for its security.
20
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
This list is not closed, delegates are encouraged to introduce as many topics as they
need during the committee sessions. This are just some guidelines that will help
organize the debate.
This study guide is the kick starter for your research, but you should be aiming to do
more research about your individual country’s stance on the topic itself. What bloc
are you in? What solutions has your country implemented individually? These
questions and the solutions you propose for the main issue should be outlined in your
Position Paper, that you will need to send to us before the conference begins.
21
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
Please, additionally, ensure that you read the Rules of Procedure before the
conference. If you have any questions, please contact the SYMUN team through
symun@anudi.org.
Delegates attire must be at all moments appropriate to the relevance of the event
and the role represented. Therefore, compliance with the so-calles Wester Bussiness
Attire is mandatory.
• Female: full suit of blazer, with blouse or dress or formal shoe. No jeans or
• Male: full suit or blazer and formal trousers (no jeans are accepted), shirt, tie o
bow-tie, and formal shoes. Again, neither sneakers nor formal wear will be
accepted.
Moreover, if you have any doubt or need any information about the Committee,
conferences or other issues, don ́t hesitate to contact us.
V. POSITION PAPER.
A Position Paper is a document which describes the official policy of the country that
a delegate is representing on the issue at hand. It is useful to facilitate prior
22
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
- First paragraph: International and local situation on the issue. Country’s policy
in face of it and national efforts taken by your own country to eradicate the
problem.
- Second paragraph: Previous and current actions being carried out by the
international community (e.g. past UN resolutions, programmes, frameworks,
etc.). Country’s position regarding previous and current efforts (i.e. what can
be improved?).
It is important that you elaborate your Position Paper with clear and concise
information about your country’s policy, so an extension of a single page will be more
than enough. Finally, it should be noted that plagiarism will not be accepted. Any
figure, statement or fact must be quoted and its source of origin must be clearly
indicated.
VI. BIOGRAPHY.
Davenport, K, & Reif. K. (2019). Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance.
Armscontrol.prg. (Online). Retrieved on the 6th of September of 2019 from:
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat
23
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
Hanhimäki, J. (2008). The United Nations. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Iran | isis-reports | Institute for Science and International Security. (2018). Retrieved
3 July 2019, from http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/category/iran/
Ruzicka, J., & Wheeler, N. J. (2010). The puzzle of trusting relationships in the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. International Affairs, 86(1), 69-85
Siracusa, J. (2008). Nuclear weapons: a very short introduction. New York, Ny: Oxford
University Press.
United Nations (1945). Charter of the United Nations. Retrieved on the 6th of
September of 2019 from: https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/ctc/uncharter.pdf
United Nations Security Council (n.d.). What is the Security Council?. Retrieved on
the 6th of September of 2019 from:
https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/what-security-council
24
SYMUN 2019 | STUDY GUIDE
25