United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization

Hello delegates!

The delegation of Australia would like express its excitement for the upcoming conference, as well as its appreciation for the other delegations for their interest in instigating discussion on the topics prior to the official conference.

Australia is a full-fledged supporter of primary education and will do all it can to make worldwide primary education a more feasible reality. Australia would also like to encourage other nations to advocate for universal primary education. Students in Australia, for instance, are required to be in school through Year 10; schools in Australia keep approximately 4.5% of the country’s GDP; and Australia aims to give more $63 billion dollars to its school systems throughout 2009-2012. Australia has a 99% literacy rate, as well. Ultimately, Australia would recommend soliciting UN members for monetary and human aid in order to most effectively aid countries in need of educational assistance. In addition to these types of aid, Australia would also like to propose involvement in NGOS; Australia gave approximately $779 million to aid NGOS in 2007.

With respect to internet censorship and the effects on the rights of the individual, Australia would like to remark on its appreciation for censorship. Australia advocates freedom of expression unless such expression offends or violates the morals of the majority of the population at the present time. In 1999, a bill that advocates for the censoring of internet material that is X-rated, R-rated without adult verification, or that could be considered obscene was passed in Australia. As a whole, Australia would like to implement the inviolable human right of freedom of speech but would like to promote internet censorship in order to keep from damaging the morals of the majority of the country’s population. Australia would like to suggest a UNESCO ambassador to guide the legislations of countries struggling to implement such freedoms or impose internet safeguards to a friendlier legislation that is more accommodating of the rights of the individuals, including freedom of speech.

Hello fellow delegates,

Liechtenstein would like to agree with the Russian Federation on the importance of utilizing NGO’s in our efforts to achieve universal education for all countries. It is currently estimated that more than 100 million school-aged children do not have access to education. The majority of these children are estimated to reside in areas such as Africa and South Asia , where geographic location and minimal funding/resources cause schooling opportunities to be rare. NGO’s are an ideal way to decrease illiteracy and improve access to education in these areas as they are in no way affiliated with the government and are adequately funded.

One example can be seen in Nigeria. Just last year, Nigeria was able to eliminate attendance fees for its Junior Secondary School due to generous funding from the non-governmental organization, the Caritas Foundation. An immediate increase in attendance from both genders resulted. Due to Nigeria ’s prevalent poverty, many families hardly have enough money to allocate towards basic needs such as feeding the family, let alone dedicate to their children’s education pursuits. Only through cancellation of attendance fees were families able and willing to allow their children to obtain an education. Due to its success in Nigeria , Lichtenstein proposes also utilizing NGO’s in India and Uganda to achieve universal education.

An ideal NGO that could be utilized in India is Pratham which works in conjunction with the government to increase disadvantaged children’s access to education. With the consent of the government, Pratham funds the creation of new school facilities and trains enthusiastic volunteers to become successful teachers. Hence, the NGO does not displace the government’s intentions to provide universal education too all children, but merely supplements it. In addition, since the NGO cooperates with the government, violation of state sovereignty is not an issue. At practically no cost, Pratham provides to students a friendly, community-based education which includes vocational training, computer literacy, special programs for vulnerable children, and mainstream education. By implementing NGO’s such as Pratham in areas with low school attendance, the number of students in educational institutions will rapidly increase.

The Principality of Liechtenstein

We want to comment on the Aid Urged for Groups Fighting Internet Censors post.

The delegation on behalf of the United Kingdom, in the reference to the article that describes organizations that are currently fighting restrictions on the internet use, believes that there should be assistance to these groups to develop more effective strategy to fight the internet censorship. The article states that “Programs like Psiphon, Freegate and Tor, available free online, allow people in those countries to bounce their Internet traffic off servers in other parts of the world, bypassing local restrictions. But the organizations that have developed those programs say they are constrained by resources and consumed by a never-ending technological arms race with government censors.” United Kingdom firmly believes that the resources as well as the technology that these organizations lack can be compensated with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development.

The specific organization that the article describes is The Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC), which has been running the world’s largest anti-censorship operation since 2000. However, the consortium does not have a proper funding, but they still provide their products and support services to the citizens of closed societies entirely free of charge. Moreover, according to the Consortium, “more demands from the users in closed societies has been increasing at an exploding speed, and far surpassed the little growth of the resources that they can obtain.” Thus developed nations should consider aiding these groups with funds to support the development of ICT. In addition, the assistance from the software companies to develop such technology as well as anti-censorship programs to provide citizens the rights to access information is necessary.

First of all, the Russian Federation would first like to commend all the countries that have taken the initiative to debate these topics.

On the topic of universal primary level education, Russia feels that our current levels of primary education our quite low. There are two major problems that Russia as well as many countries across the world face. The first is the accessibility to education. This in itself is a large and expansive problem. Many countries do not have the educational resources, equipment, funding of manpower to effectively educate our youth. The one problem that Russia faces is a lack of teachers present in Russia. Although we have a 99.7% literacy rate, our quality of education is low because of increased class sizes and a lack of educational capital. What we need at this time are training programs that will boost the numbers of teachers that we have in the workplace and and programs that will allow teachers once they are in the classroom to be more effective at performing their jobs.

In the past, Russia has taken some initiative to privatize many small enterprises and for the most part, privatization was quite effective. However, since the fall of the USSR in 1991, these programs have been restricted. The Russian Federation would now like to propose that privatization of training programs to some extent is a necessary step for the Russian Federation and many other nations.

At this time, the Russian Federation will promote cooperation with NGO’s that deal with education and educational training programs. Also, larger more capable nations can help programs in developing and underdeveloped nations to progress through the direct injection of manpower or funding. The Russian Federation believes that the incentives for these countries will be similar to the emissions trading system found in the Kyoto Protocol. The intent behind this protocol was well meaning but the extent to which the emissions trading scheme was carried was too extreme for many countries to handle. The Russian Federation would like to base a plan off of the emissions trading scheme to apply to education that will hopefully be implemented and increase the quality of education worldwide.

In response to Liechtenstein’s comment:

Hello Liechtenstein! United Kingdom really appreciates your effort for taking time to put up an article about the Venezuelan government. We have thoroughly read the article J and indeed agree that the regional support of OAS can greatly help to promote freedom of opinion and expression.

Although United Kingdom knows that United Nations Human Rights Council has already designated special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Mr. Frank William La Rue, United Kingdom do acknowledge the fact that Mr. La Rue can play much huge role in promoting freedom of opinion and expression.

In April 2009, Mr. La Rue has specifically warned Venezuela’s proposed ‘Special Law against Media Crimes’ as a “proposed ‘Special Law against Media Crimes’ would involve serious violations of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and would curtail press freedom in the country, if it is adopted in its current form.”

However, United Kingdom believes that Mr. La Rue can be not only used to address and remind Venezuelan government about the freedom of opinion and expression, but also to seek and gather all relevant information as well as transmitting urgent appeals and communications regarding the violation of human rights.

Moreover since Mr. La Rue has stated that “In this regard, I stand ready to provide technical support and assistance to promote and protect the right to freedom of opinion and expression in Venezuela,” United Kingdom agrees with Liechtenstein that use of special rapporteur can be effective in addressing as well as providing actual solutions to this issue.

Hello delegates, United Kingdom wants to express its view on the second article that was posted which actually talks about UK’s new proposal for developing education.

United Kingdom has been showing its willingness to commit in development of education through various efforts in the past until this day. Currently, through its Department for International Development, United Kingdom is providing bilateral support to education programs in over 30 developing countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. On the other hand, certainly, United Kingdom is putting all of their effort to improve their own education system, just like it is described in the article, making a new scheme called Teach Now which is actually derived from a similar scheme called Teach First.

In the previous years, Teach First, recruited exceptional graduates and placed them in challenging teaching positions for the course of a two-year Leadership Development Program. United Kingdom wants to affirm that this kind of plan is indeed efficient and successful since more than 55% of the Teach First participants decide to remain in teaching. Therefore, United Kingdom wants to encourage other nations to implement plans like Teach First which will train and recruit high-quality teachers as well as promoting teacher as a prestigious profession to ensure the existence of a quality education.

The delegation of China would like to comment on our participation in this issue with Google and its supposed censorship of the internet within our country. As many are aware, there is a special branch of Google that operates within China, known as Google.cn. With this search engine, as well as the many others that run in China, each are under contract to operate within and comply with local law. However, the People’s Republic of China recognizes that this local law should not contradict international human rights laws, for we have signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. China is currently trying to move away from our past of secrecy and censorship and move towards a future of openness and communication where we can uphold these documents that we have adopted.

Of course, we recognize that in some matters of security, order, and the protecting of other vital human rights, some information and intelligence SHOULD be limitedly available to the public. This is where the role of Google comes in. The information that Google has chosen to censor for us is limited to that of access to terrorism, pornography, extreme forms of “hate speech” that might provoke intolerance or anarchy between different groups through the spreading of rumors and other actions, and threats to national security, public order, and public health/morals. Unfortunately, there is no list stating and detailing precisely and exactly what these limitations are, something China realizes we must do in order to have better communication and understanding regarding the freedom of information via the Internet. We understand that many past actions have labeled us as one of the highest Internet censors out there, but we have and continue to progress immensely in attempting to allow and promote freedom of information and expression. However, this cannot be done quickly or overnight and we are simply trying to take it one step at a time.

This new stance of many American companies is yet another push in attempting to further China to promote and allow freedom of expression and information regarding the Internet. It is one aspect of international pressure that encourages us to create a stronger and more transparent policy regarding this topic. And by saying this, we do encourage companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to uphold the standards and precedents they have set, but we also encourage them to understand that in some cases it may be best for the livelihood of citizens to withhold dangerous or threatening information or intelligence.

Hello Delegates, this is United Kingdom and we hope that in UNESCO, every nation can work together to solve the problem that’s given to us, which is achieving Universal Primary Education and the Internet Censorship and the Effects on the Rights on the Individual. We will be more than happy to talk and work with every nation possible to draw an effective solution . We would like to now comment on the first article which talks about Google, making an unprecedented announcement which claimes that it is no longer willing to coninue censoring search results on Google. cn, its Chinese search engine.

As a member of the European Union, United Kingdom has agreed to adopt Internet freedom provision with other EU members which is unprecedented across the globe in 2009 and a strong signal that the along with EU, United Kingdom strongly believes that the internet freedom is the fundamental rights of a human being. Therefore, Google’s statement about the censorship issues in China greatly excited United Kingdom. Certainly like it is described in the article, various companies including Google and Yahoo has joined Global Network Initiative (GNI) in 2007 and even far as 1999 in the World Economic Forum, United Nations have initiated The United Nations Global Compact or UNGC, which is the framework that encourages businesses to adopt the ten principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment, and anti-corruption which also companies have adopted.

However, evidently, these efforts have been unsuccessful since United Kingdom has been witnessing that companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, and more (including Google) have been complying with the Chinese government’s censorship requirements. Moreover, in 2009, Chinese government decided to mandate censorship software called Green Dam in all new PCs which caused more human rights concerns among human rights activists and organizations around the world.

In response to Google’s action, there has been criticism that Google is pulling out of China because of the economic reasons but covering them with human rights issues. However, United Kingdom still believes that Google’s open statement regarding the human rights violation of China is a good precedent for other companies to follow in the future. Yet, seeing that the Chinese rival of Google, Baidu share 13% and Google only 0.57% of market in China, United Kingdom understands that Google’s movement might not be the strongest way to make China aware of the issue. Therefore, United Kingdom believes that in order to continue this movement, other companies in China like Microsoft and Yahoo who have signed GNI should collaborate and avoid helping China with its internet censorship and human rights repression through them.

The United States’ view on the article about Google in China, is that we strongle agree with the action that Google has taken. If other internet companies can follow in the footsteps of Google and support the Global Online Freedom Act, it can help lead to greater freedom of information to people all around the world. The United States also believes that China must grant freedom of information to its citizens, by allowing its citizens to have access to this information. Overall, major internet companies should not give in to the demands of countries that prohibit freedom of information because it goes against the basic human rights of the individual.

Guten Tag and Hello!

We are proud to be representing the Principality of Liechtenstein and extremely excited to be participating in BMUN this year! With a population of less than 35,000 people and the highest GDP per capita in the world, Liechtenstein is an extremely small but very affluent nation. The constitution of Liechtenstein guarantees both the freedom o expression and of the press. Managed through a constitutional monarchy and electoral democracy, Liechtenstein believes that increasing democratic ideals such as the freedom of expression and increasing the flow of information will indubitably lead to the empowerment of citizens and advancements in human
rights around the world.

As we were researching, we came across a recent article concerning Venezuela and its freedom of expression violations. Hopefully, you will find it as useful as we did. The URL is: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2010/02/venezuela-government-violating-basic.php and the text of the article is below:

Thursday, February 25, 2010
The Venezuelan government is continuously violating basic human rights [press release], particularly freedom of expression, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for the Organization of American States (OAS) [official website] said in a report [text] released
Wednesday. The Democracy and Human Rights in Venezuela report provides a detailed analysis on the state of human rights in the country, led by President Hugo Chavez [JURIST news archive], and ultimately concludes that not all citizens are ensured full enjoyment of their basic human rights. The IACHR, which prepared the report without being able to visit Venezuela due to the country’s refusal, said that threats to human rights and democracy are serious issues. In
particular, the report details the lack of freedom of expression, citing accounts in which the State is “punishing people based on their political convictions.” The report also notes a lack of punishment for cases involving violence:

Acts of retaliation to quash dissent; attacks against human rights defenders and against journalists; repression of peaceful protest; abuse by State agents and common and organized crime; violence in the prison system; violence against women; and other grave violations of human rights are all characterized in Venezuela by the high levels of impunity associated with them.

The report cites improvements in the areas of economic, social, and cultural rights, butmaintains that every citizen should be able to enjoy all basis rights, including civil and political rights. The report insists on Venezuela’s compliance with the obligations it “freely assumed under the American Convention” and with the recommendations laid out by the IACHR in its report.

Venezuela has been criticized repeatedly for its limits on freedom of expression and religion. Last year, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) added Venezuela to its “watch list” [JURIST report] of countries that limit religious freedom. Also last year, the US State Department criticized Venezuela for press restrictions [JURIST report] in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. In 2008, Venezuelan officials ordered two senior Human
Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] staff to leave the country [JURIST report] after the group released a report concluding that democracy and human rights have suffered during the Chavez administration.

In reading this and other articles, Liechtenstein feels that it is imperative to collaborate between the United Nations and the Organization of American States in order to increase the flow of information to Venezuelan citizens and allow them to express their thoughts and opinions. Therefore, we also encourage the need to use special rapporteurs to remind the Venezuelan government of “its obligation to respect freedom of expression.” Liechtenstein looks forward to working with other nations to emphasize the need to eradicate polarization and instead achieve international peace and security through improved information flow and expanded personal rights. We are excited pursue the common objective of increasing freedom of expression with you all next week!

~ Reetika Rastogi & Tiffany Cheng
Principality of Liechtenstein