Model United Nations of Lübeck

Position Papers

Please pay careful attention to the following guidelines when drafting and submitting your position papers. Please follow these guidelines carefully when submitting your work to the Secretariat.

Contents

Every Delegate has to write a position paper on the topics that are to be discussed in your forum. Each topic should be addressed briefly in a succinct policy statement representing the relevant views of the assigned country or NGO. You should also include recommendations for action to be taken by your committee.

Formal aspects

• All papers must be typed and formatted according to the sample position paper.
• Length must not exceed two pages
• Font must be Times New Roman sized between 10 pt. and 12 pt.
• Delegation, school, author and forum need to be clearly labelled on the first page
• Agenda topics clearly labelled in separate sections
• No binding, staples, paper clips, or cover sheets should be used on any of the papers

Position Papers need to be submitted via email to

File Format: *.doc & *.docx(Microsoft Word) or *.PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format). File name: [Forum (abbrieviated)] - [represented country/organisation etc. (short term, abbreviation.)]. Examples: "4 - Russia.doc", "ECOSOC - UNHCR.docx".

Each of the above listed tasks needs to be completed no later than March 15^th, 2009.

How to write a position paper 

Before getting started

Before starting to formulate your Position Paper please take a few moments, sit down and make up your mind about how eventual operative clauses in a resolution concerning the discussed topic should look like. It is of utmost importance to know what you want to say and achieve in advance! By knowing your “operative-wish list” you will have much easier work in formulating your “action plan” (see below). Moreover you will have a concrete guideline, which will help you in building up an argumentation structure. By knowing in the beginning what you want to achieve at the end of the day, formulating your position will become much easier and more target-oriented.

Structure your Ideas

A position paper should be divided into three paragraphs to create an understandable structure and logic:

• Describe the current situation:

  Please give an outline of the current situation. Formulate what the problem in the affected countries actually is in the opinion of your country. Is there an urgent need to take action? Can the problem escalate to the neighboring countries, the region or the whole world? Why exactly is it important for your country to contribute to the solution finding process? It is also welcome to praise your current and recent efforts concerning this issue. Take care that the description of the problem represents your perception of the problem. The task is not to give a scientifically accurate account of the situation involving all possible factors and points of views, but to frame the problem in a manner favorable to your argument.

• List all relevant documents, treaties, conventions and resolutions:

  This is the part where you will have to do some research in the first place. Find out all documents, treaties, conventions and resolutions that already deal with the discussed issues, what their essence is, and list them up. As you don’t have the space to mention every single one, make a wise selection. Please state whether you support a particular document, and if you don’t give a short but plausible explanation why. Criticize everything your country rejects and praise all items your country supports. The essence of this part should be a guideline of how perambulatory clauses of a possible resolution should look like in your countries opinion.
  Helpful source for introduction: http://unbisnet.un.org/

• Action Plan:

  Here is the right place to formulate your own ideas about how the above-mentioned and criticized documents, treaties and mechanisms should be improved or amended. Since you criticized the already existing structures in the second part you are expected to come up with solutions for the problem. Take care that you avoid double-structures and institutions through creative proposals that ask for solutions that already exist but had different names. This paragraph is comparable with operative clauses you want to have included inside a resolution.

Useful hints

• Use active formulations: Prefer "Saudi Arabia rejects…" to "…is rejected by Saudi Arabia".
• Name your country as often as possible. It should at least be the beginning of every paragraph.
• Conventions, documents and treaties should be put in italics.
• Use sophisticated English – vary with expressions and avoid repetitions; make sure that expressions fit with the logic of your argument: no assembly of rocking words that render the content incomprehensible
• Please don’t take the proposed guideline as a final advice. It is of course possible to interchange paragraphs II and I and start with the documents and follow up with the description of the situation. The important factor is that any third person should be able to get the essence of your argumentation structure at once.