UN talk unites students from across the globe

UN talk unites students from across the globe

by Rachel Scott
Swarthmore Phoenix
April 21

Last Thursday students from three continents came together to discuss issues of United Nations reform through a videoconference with United Nations Industrial Development Organization Director of Human Resources Management Branch Julio Camarena-Villaseñor.

The conference was slated to begin with a keynote speech from Vienna, Austria, given by Carlos Magariños, director-general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, but conference participants learned at the last minute that Magariños was unable to attend and had sent an envoy. Camarena-Villaseñor gave opening remarks in his place, advocating the need to integrate the organizations within the U.N. that deal with development in order to achieve greater effectiveness.

The conference included students from Swarthmore, Columbia, Northwestern, UCLA, Universidad Central in Quito, Ecuador and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna in Vienna, Austria, and was sponsored by Americans for Informed Democracy, an organization that promotes global dialogue among university students.

Next, students from each school gave brief opening presentations laying out the issues for U.N. reform they found most pressing. Andrew Sniderman ’06, co-president of Swarthmore Sudan, started off the presentations by discussing the frequent failure of the U.N. to intervene when countries cease to protect their own citizens. He cited the situation in Darfur as an example of this gap in responsibility and described the efforts of Swarthmore students to take action outside of U.N. avenues through the Genocide Intervention Fund.

Students at other universities raised a number of other issues related to security and development, including questions about the efficacy of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s proposed reforms to the Security Council and Commission on Human Rights, as well as the role of the United States and other influential countries on taking the lead in U.N. action.

Martyna Pospieszalska ’06, Swarthmore’s lone member of Americans for Informed Democracy, facilitated Swarthmore’s participation in the conference. She had mixed feelings on the content of dialogue that took place, saying it was less coherent than she had hoped.

Political science professor Raymond Hopkins offered an explanation for this lack of coherence. “What happened was that individual schools had different agendas,” he said.

Proposed U.N. reforms are directed at the areas of development, human rights, and security, and although Camarena-Villaseñor framed the conference in terms of development in his introductory remarks, students had prepared to talk about all three areas. Hopkins characterized the conversation as “more opening statements than dialogue.”

Becky Strauss ’06, who attended the conference, thought it might have been more productive if its purpose had been to educate rather than to converse. “There weren’t any experts speaking — do we [as students] really know what we’re talking about when it comes to U.N. reform?” she said. “I think the conference was symbolically important, but I don’t think we gained that much from this conversation. All we can accomplish is to be better informed ourselves.”

But both Pospieszalska and Hopkins saw a number of positive outcomes of the dialogue. Some students expressed skepticism about the efficacy of UNIDO’s push to unite the sectors of the U.N. that deal with development, and Pospieszalska said she thinks that message got through to the directors. “Who knows if they’ll take that into consideration, but at least they’re hearing it,” she said.

Hopkins found the contributions from the Ecuadorian university quite valuable. “You could sense dissatisfaction from Ecuador at their status in the system,” he said. “It kept us alert to the different situations that countries face.”

Pospieszalska also sees potential for future videoconferences now that the first one has laid the groundwork. “Once people see that it works, hopefully we’ll be able to share ideas globally, not just within the Swat bubble,” she said.

Hopkins agreed that the videoconference could be an important tool for dialogue in the future. “I’ve participated in voice conferences that were much less effective than this,” he said. “The video added texture and quality.”

“I think there was a little bit of stage fright involved, too,” Hopkins added. “If people get used to the format, it will go a little more smoothly next time.”

Pospieszalska said she hopes to start a chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy at Swarthmore as a formal chartered club. The group frequently sponsors similar videoconferences among students from different countries on a variety of topics.