ITBMUN

Backstory

After my first MUN, I actually didn't consider joining another MUNs. Due to STEI's ruthless second semester and my intensive activities in various organizations during that time, I don't think MUN ever crossed my mind in my whole second semester of college. It's not until May when the semester has practically ended that I found out about ITBMUN. More importantly, I found a council with a topic that I am quite passionate about (see the topic at the top of this page). At the time (and until now to some extent) I'll only join MUNs that has a topic I am interested in, which this MUN certainly has. I had been a little acquainted with how underrated nuclear power is as an energy source and how overblown its downsides are. As such I was more than eager to really dig into the issue and become a number one hype man of nuclear power during the conference.

The (Much Better) Preparation

Due to me having 3 weeks for preparation (the time gap between allocation and the event) with barely anything else to do (other than making Snake Classics, see the section in personal project) since it was the holiday, I poured a lot more thought and deliberation into my preparation. One of the best thing I "developed" during the preparation of this MUN that I still uses in all MUN after this one is the use of drawio for mapping out my research and even planning the debates. It was not just the use of drawio but also how to use drawio that I initialized during the preparation of this MUN, such as the legends and the arrows used. Screenshots are included in the gallery section below and you can see the document here.

Misguided Research

The resulting document is really elaborate. But a large portion of it wasn't used during the conference. There were at least one particular thing that I should not have spent too much time into digging, opposition research. The most convoluted part of the document was the part where I tried to find dirt and deconstruct the position of 3 particular nation who is opposed to nuclear power (because I was South Korea, a nation that is very much pro-nuclear) :

1. Germany

2. Japan

3. Austria

There are 2 reasons why I can conclude that I spent too much time on opposition research into them :

1. The delegate from those 3 nation wound up not showing up, which is certainly a certified bruh moment considering they are the strongest voice of opposition in the worldwide debate about nuclear power.

2. You really wouldn't have time to disseminate all of those information collected in an MC, UMC, or CotW.

TL;DR I just drowned in the pool and refused to swim back out.

The misguided opposition research also occurred to the two other category of energy source : fossil fuels and renewables. I spent a lot of time researching why fossil fuels are much more harmful than nuclear power and why renewables cannot be used as a primary energy source due to their unpredictable nature. But they also wound up not being used because the debate throughout the conference was not whether or not nuclear power has a place in the world's energy portfolio but how can nuclear power's place in the world's energy portfolio be enhanced or strengthened because there was barely any country during the conference that opposes the adoption of nuclear power.

The primary takeaway from this is that my research should've been proportional. It's fine to research the things I "over research" as extensively as I did, but in that case I should've spent an equal, if not more, amount of time and effort researching other parts of the topic such as new innovations in nuclear power technology and my own country's actions in regards to nuclear accidents.

Insights From the Research

There were 2 reasons why the research for this MUN was so extensive : I was very passionate about the topic and I generally tend to get lost in the research. As such, there was a lot of cool things that I found about nuclear energy, its relationship with other sources of energy, and its place in the world.

The (Very Memorable) Conference

It was really fun. To this day this MUN is one of my favorite (only get beaten my SMUN) and is certainly my most favorite online conference. There was a lot of memorable moments and friend I made that sticks to this day. And I think that made me hungry for more MUN when it's done, unlike the previous (and first) MUN that I joined.

Crisis Updates and Its (Hilarious) Implication

This incredibly funny moment is the one that will make this MUN forever memorable in my mind.

So I'll preface this by saying that the Russia in my council was a bit peculiar, let's just say that. At some point in the first half of the conference the delegate proposed a solution to use military guard to secure nuclear powerplant to ensure their security and prevent them from being co-opted by terrorist. This solution made it into their bloc working paper. At that point I had a bloc opposite of Russia consisting of me (South Korea), USA, and Australia. Me and Australia objected to this solution because it's redundant. Surely nations have already thought about the security of their nuclear powerplant, there's no need to propose something something so obvious that it is already taken care of.

Before the last committee session in the first day ended, there's a crisis update from the Press. 4 of the countries in the council was called out for their stances during the conference : South Africa, USA, Russia, and South Korea. That night, me and my bloc had a long meeting (until at least 1 AM midnight) discussing how to defend our stances from the Crisis updates, how to attack members of the opposite bloc using the crisis update, drafting, and of course gossiping & trash talking.

The crisis update attacked Russia's aforementioned proposal, but it's somewhat misguided. When Russia proposed the military guard stuff during the committee session other delegates, including me, comprehend it as a recommendation for nations who have a nuclear powerplant to use their own military guard to guard their own nuclear powerplant. However, the crisis update comprehend Russia's proposal very differently. It believes Russia's proposal was that Russia will send Russia's military guard to all nuclear powerplant worldwide to secure it. Why this discrepancy occur is likely because Russia wrote the solution in their working paper in a very rudimentary manner that the two aforementioned interpretation could reasonably be made from Russia's written solution.

So then me and my bloc were discussing how to attack Russia over the crisis update, there were 2 options :

1. Take the crisis update at face value (criticize Russia's solution's solely based on the interpretation of the update)

2. Correct the record first (assume the first interpretation of Russia's solution) and then criticize the solution based on that

We decided to do a little trolling by opting for the second one. My bloc projected that this is what's going to happen :

1. Our bloc criticize the solution because its blatant violation of sovereignty

2. Russia correct the update by saying that the first interpretation is correct and that Russia's proposal has been mischaracterized by the update

3. Our bloc repeats the objection that it's redundant

4. Council moves on

But that's not what wound up happening. What happened was after Australia conducted step 1, Russia did not deny the interpretation of the crisis update. Which is insane (told you Russia is peculiar). Russia admits that the nation wanted to do that as "our generosity for the international order". I saw this as an opportunity for a slam dunk by making a speech almost immediately after Russia's speech with a banger opening, "There are three kinds of tea that Russia does not like, black tea, green tea, and sovereignty". After which the whole council, including the chairs, tried to hold back their laughter.

Continued Wackiness of the Second Day

Russia's insanity didn't stop there however. The military guard stuff was just one among his solutions, all of which are not actionable for various reasons. One of his proposal was a form of aid to developing countries who is looking to expand their nuclear energy production. The aid mentioned in his solution seems to be administered exclusively by Russia (which is why it's not a serious solutions and not actionable). This solution was in the working paper of Russia's bloc but have been struck out in the bloc's DR. Between the first and second day, the rest of Russia's bloc members seem to have distanced themselves from Russia but what he's about to do really sealed the deal.

Russia insisted on including their solution to the bloc's DR. The bloc, consisting of African countries, objected to Russia's insistence. Russia still insist by outright saying that the bloc's members needed the aid because they're poor (yes he actually said that). And then all of the bloc's member make a speech disavowing Russia.

The council ended with Russia voting against both DR even when Russia is a tiebreaker, resulting in no DR being passed.

Conclusion

11/10, would totally slander Russia again.