WTO

Hi delegates,

You all did a great job in opening up debate today. I heard some quality speeches and comments, and saw some strong participation in caucus.

We still have the majority of committee ahead of us and two important topics to address. Please continue to put in the effort that you’ve been putting in, and we’ll continue to have the high quality debate we’ve been seeing. We’re hoping to finish up the topic of food safety by lunchtime tomorrow and go right into IPRs.

Research awards will be given out on Sunday.

- Stephanie

_______________
So guys, we’re over the three hour hump. Those first few hours are ruthless, people are tired, you don’t know anyone, and you’re simply bored out of your mind (I understand). But these next few days are about the world, not you, so suck it up. Anyway, if none of this applies to you, then i’m pretty happy. This means that we don’t suck that much.

From what i’ve seen today, you guys are doing great! At this point, i really don’t have anything to add, except that please come to committee with an open mind and smile, because tomorrow, we we will make food safe for everyone (hopefully). And we might have enough time to protect those who come with those crazy inventions (like me! I have this idea right, where the toilet seat weighs you every time you sit on the toilet and tells you how much weight you’ve lost in that session. I don’t want anyone jacking my idea. It’s golden)

Love to my mad homies (delegations),
Sohail

Hey all,

I’ve received an email from Colombia regarding a website they built for this conference: http://bmun.madfusiononline.com/

Included are some of their policies and solutions to the issues for this debate.  Feel free to go check it out and start talking to each other about your ideas, if you haven’t already.

Props to Michael and Jessica for all their hard work!

Have a nice day.  See you in three days!

- Cindy

Hey all,

Many people have asked me about how the resolutions will be presented in committee. We should be getting a projector, but just in case, try and bring an extra flash drive to save your resolutions on.

I hope that answers your question.

A few links on the latest news regarding food safety:
“China: Food Poisoning Deaths Up in 2007” - think about this in relation to the Olympics:

“How to Ensure Food Safety”
Good luck researching!

- Cindy

Hey Delegates,

Here’s another thought to ponder: as food safety issues are on the rise, it is easy to automatically assume that all nations would want more stringent rules. However, it is not as simple as that, since placing more rules would mean higher costs in hiring workers to perform these checks, as well as difficulties in training workers. This also brings further problems in who will fund and oversee the rules. In addition, more rules also means greater barriers to free trade and potential political conflicts.

Try to think about the big picture – how can nations address all these issues and come to a diplomatic agreement?

Five more days until the conference! You guys have put in a lot of effort. Keep it up! I’m looking forward to an exciting quality debate.

Again, feel free to comment or email any of us if you have any questions or concerns.

- Cindy

Hey delegates,

Sohail here again. Just wanted to see how everyone was and how everyone was feeling about the conference. I hope everyone is pretty pumped. Anyway, just wanted to link you to this website that the delegate of South Africa suggested regarding food saftey and such: http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp

If you have any questions about anything feel free to comment and we’ll probably get back to you within a couple days. Also, feel free to link your fellow delegates to any websites which you think are particularly useful.

9 days,
Sohail

Hi Delegates!

I’ve been receiving many of your position papers.  Congrats to the ones who finished early!  Just a friendly reminder for the rest of you that the deadline for position papers are coming up; they should be postmarked by this Saturday, March 1st.

Also, hope you are all following the issues of food safety as well as intellectual property closely.  As many of you may know, there has been a problem with beef recently in schools, leading to continued concerns about food safety.  As you read the news, think about these questions: how does an incident like this relate to the world on a larger scale?  With world trade being so integrated, how could this incident mount into a crisis, and how should countries continue to pursue free trade while ensuring the safety of their food?

Just a few thoughts.  Again, feel free to introduce yourself or ask questions, as delegates who post will be noticed.

Good luck wrapping up your papers, and remember to cite your sources in MLA or APA format!

- Cindy

I came across this hilarious, yet a little informative, video on food safety.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1EkehFkhWf4

I wish I was as talented as those microbes.

Love,
Sohail

Hey guys,

I’m Sohail Khanifar and I’m the Vice-Chair of WTO. I’m supposed to make some sort of lame introduction right here so I guess i’ll give you guys some info about myself.
I don’t really know how to explain myself to you guys, but I guess I’m the sort of person that sleeps through fire alarms and has to be woken up by the firefighters that come through and check each of the rooms. Pretty embarrassing, huh? Its happened twice in the last semester! I discovered that I really don’t like ice cream that much while I was at berkeley. The idea of cold cream just doesn’t seem appealing to me. :-\ I’m in an eurodisco band and you can check us out at www.myspace.com/imnotreallyinaband . Hopefully, you’ll soon find out that I’m really not as lame as i read on text than I am in real life (even though that’s probably the case)

Since I’m introducing Food Safety, I found some pretty interesting sites you guys might want to check out.

This website addresses one of the crises that has been widely covered by the media in the last 5 years. Its pretty comprehensive: http://www.who.int/foodsafety/micro/avian/en/index1.html There are 3 more pages that you might want to check out.

In 2005, the food safety forums were set up for africa. Check out the website: http://www.foodsafetyforum.org/african/index.asp

Some topics you guys might want to look at food quality, preservation, contaminants, labeling (sounds too unimportant but actually really useful), and illnesses.

I will definitely update more regularly as we approach the conference. If you have any questions, and Ireally mean any, feel free to leave a comment or email me at skhanifar@berkeley.edu.

With much anticipation for an awesome committee,
Sohail Khanifar

P.S. I heard a rumor on the streets that the chairs are counting how many comments you make on the blog. I mean, come on, you could at least introduce yourself.

Hi Delegates,

My name is Stephanie Chen and I’ll be your vice chair this March.

A little about myself: I’m on the Club Tennis team and a member of Koinonia Fellowship. I first came to BMUN as a high-school delegate in UNEP and am looking forward to chairing WTO this year.

I hope you’ve all been keeping up with the latest on your topics. To help you get beyond the synopses, here are links to LexisNexis’ Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) site:
http://www.lexisnexis.com/practiceareas/ip/

and International Law updates:
http://www.lexisnexis.com/practiceareas/international/

The sites won’t get all your research done (you should be doing that on your own) but will serve as a basis for learning more about IPR and what’s happening in the WTO.

Good luck writing some quality position papers! Feel free to post on the BMUN WTO blog with relevant comments.

- Stephanie

Dear Delegates,

It has been pointed out to me that the delegate guide says that your papers are to be 3-5 pages per topic, so please note that when I said three pages in my post, that is the minimum requirement.  You are welcome to write more.

Another point of confusion is in the sections for you position papers.  Please note that the grading rubric will be as follows:
I. Topic Description (about 1 page) - 15%

• Historical Background
• Current Situation
• Key Issues

II. Past United Nations Action (about 1/2 page) - 10%
III. Delegation Policy (about 1 page) - 40%
IV. Proposed Solutions (about 1 page) - 30%

• Proposal
• Arguments in Favor
• Anticipated Opposition
• Arguments in Defense

V. Bibliography - 5%   

Also, another thing to guide your research.  You don’t have to limit yourselves to only the wto website or research institutes (or Wikipedia), but try to look at other types of sites as well.  This may include news articles from publications like the New York Times, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Time/Newsweek, the Economist, etc.  With the intellectual property issue, since we’re focusing on digital media rights, it would be a good idea to look at technology blogs and news.  One example is this story.  A good idea to consolidate all these stories and sites would be to create a google search and have it sent to your email, or I also like to use Google Reader for rss feeds.

Hope this helps!

-         - Cindy