Human Rights Committee

Honorable Delegates of the Human Rights Committee,

It is our great honor and pleasure to be the Chairpersons of the Human Rights committee on the third edition of the IasiMUN conference. We strongly believe that through your participation you will bring great results and you will effectively contribute to the quality of the conference and the clarity of the debating. We encourage you to take initiative and to speak up in this committee as we are more than thrilled to chair the resolutions you will come up with.
We are looking forward to working with you as this is not only an opportunity to experience being a delegate in a Model United Nations conference, as it is also a chance to develop in new circumstances, by meeting new people and by having an opportunity to challenge yourselves.

Please feel free to e-mail us on the following address: humanrights.iasimun@gmail.com
with any questions you have regarding the committee and the topics.

With respect,
Anca Apostol, Bogdan Nazare and Diana Nita, Chairs of the Human Rights committee.

Human Rights Topics

1. Assisted suicide-How can the UN intervene in this matter?

Assisted suicide refers to patients suffering from a terminal illness that request drugs to end their suffering under medical supervision. Even though modern medicine has brought great benefits to humanity, it cannot entirely solve problems arising from pain and distress.
This practice is currently legal in very few countries such as: Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands and some American states: Montana, Washington and Oregon. However, most countries consider it an illegal practice, which is punished by law due to moral, ethical and religious beliefs.

Some believe that every competent adult should have the incontestable right of dying in a manner and at a time of their own choosing. Also it is discussed that this procedure would be against the Hippocratic Oath which states: I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan, but the oath also includes a promise not to perform abortion, a common practice in many UN member states such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Russia, India, China

On the other hand, from an ethical and religious point a view, self-killing, as well as persuasion, provocation or assistance to it is considered a deplorable act and a capital sin. The reflection of religion on a state’s ruling is somewhat undeniable even for secular governments.

The fact that death by request is generally an unlawful practice gave birth to a kind of practice commonly known as Suicide Tourism. People living in countries where assisted suicide is banned and wishing to put an end to their no longer fruitful life travel to a suicide clinic, such as Dignitas-Switzerland, in one of the countries previously mentioned in order to receive assistance in committing suicide. A problem which rises with suicide tourism is the fact that the families who travelled to support their loved ones may be convicted on their return for breaking their country’s law against participating in an assisted suicide.
Delegates should debate the issue bearing in mind in the same time that the UN cannot interfere with the state’s sovereignty in what concerns legal aspects.

Questions to take into consideration:

1. Should it be acceptable to prosecute well meaning people for assisted suicide?
2. Can the legal frameworks concerning assisted suicide be improved without crossing the state’s sovereignty? If so, how?
3. How should the international community react towards the suicide tourism phenomenon?

2. Organ donation

Over the past decade, organ donations and organ transplants have become an increasingly important bioethical issue from many perspectives, including religion, tradition, efficiency, human rights, etc. While most developed nations have a legal system of oversight for organ transplantation, demand still exeeds supply by far. Consequently, a “black market” trend has emerged, often referred to as transplant tourism. As a result, organ theft, even murder for the purpose of organ theft have been reported.

Developed countries in Europe and the USA already have legislation which allows both volunteering for donation and opting out – presumed consent – yielding high donor rates. However, in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) either studies have shown that organ donors have a poor quality of life and this may end up with the death of organ recipients. There are also cultural reasons, distrust of western medicine among them, which lead to a much lower rate of organ donation.

Although The World Health Organization argues that transplantations promote health, the notion of “transplantation tourism” has the potential to violate human rights or exploit the poor, to have unintended health consequences, and to provide unequal access to services, all of which ultimately may cause harm. Despite all that, thousands of lives could be saved.

The delegates of the Human Rights Comittee are strongly encouraged to propose viable solutions for this issue and to take into consideration the following aspects:

1. What is the position of the countries that have/ do not have a legal system for organ donation?
2. How can the UN take action in this issue without interfering with the culture, tradition or politics of the countries mentioned above?
3. Where and when does the illegal trade of organs occur?
4. Can the legal frameworks concerning organ donation and transplants be improved?

3. Internet censorship

“All men are created equal”, “Freedom of expression”, “The right to choose”…these are just a few of the values upheld by most democratic nations around the World, sections from articles found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, this document is more of a symbol of democracy, rather than a binding set of rules. It also states that expression of these rights is only limited by law with the purpose of securing the rights of other people as well, and “meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and welfare” (Article 29-2). Consequently, “just requirements” can have very different meanings among states.

The Internet has the potential to grant unlimited access to media and is considered by many “freedom of expression “and “access to free information” at their finest; however, it is also subjected to filtering and censorship in almost every country around the world. This is usually the case with child indecency, adult material and extremist ideas (for example supporting the Nazi groups in Germany or the North-Korean communist regime in South Korea). However, totalitarian, ex-communist or Muslim countries have been known to listen to/view the private discussions of people over the internet and to restrict access even further to political views, historical events, forums discussing the regime, religion, family practices and especially foreign media and data. It is not uncommon in these cases to have services like Google, YouTube, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Facebook or Twitter severely restricted or even blocked.

It would seem as the attempt to “protect” human rights through censorship can actually infringe human rights at one point, but where is that fine line between good censorship and over-restrictive censorship, and how can they be defined in the case of the World Wide Web?

The delegates of the Human Rights Committee are strongly encouraged to propose viable solutions for this issue and to take into consideration the following aspects:

1. Due to the right to sovereignty, it will be hard to get some states to cooperate regarding the measures taken for this problem. Can some steps be taken towards reaching an international agreement about internet censorship without crossing a country’s national policy?
2. What are the kinds of information people should be kept away from and why?
3. How could decisions from the government regarding this issue be correlated with the demands of the people?
4. What can entirely unrestricted internet lead to?

Human Rights Committee Co-Chairs:

Anca Apostol

Anca’s first MUN experience was Iasi MUN 2009, where she participated as a delegate. She was very pleased to notice the high level of the debates and the dedication the delegates have proven. The experience triggered a chain reaction in what concerns debates and MUN conferences. Since then, she participated as both organizer (IasiMUN 2010) and delegate (KarMUN 2011) at national and international conferences, as well as numerous debate competitions. As this year’s Secretary General Anca is very eager to continue the MUN tradition in Iasi and fulfill MUN’s purpose which in her opinion is to gather teens with ideas, cultivate their interest in global issues, as well as improve debating skills by making them step in the shoes of an UN Ambassador.

Bogdan Nazare

The year of 2011 has arrived, and a new IasiMUN edition is approaching, one that will be once again chaired by Bogdan Nazare within the Human Rights Committee. His first experience with MUN was in 2009, when he participated as the delegate of North Korea in the HR committee, earning himself the unofficial title as „The big bad wolf”. Since then, he has continued to actively participate in MUN conferences, as a delegate in the 2010 and 2011 editions of Galmun. Bogdan also assumed the position of chair in IasiMUN 2010, wishing to pass down his experience to new people wanting to learn more about international issues and to engage in a new form of social activity.

Diana Nita

After 2 years of participating as a delegate and with strong encouragement from her teacher Mr. David Pi, Diana hoped to be a Deputy Chair in the Human Rights Committee, where she had her first experiences with IasiMUN conferences. Although a beginner in 2009, Diana found out that students all around the country are able to find solutions to the world’s most pressing issues and that age, religion or tradition don’t matter as long as all want the same thing: to give our Planet a better future. Now, in 2011, Diana together with the other chairs will help delegates give their best and make IasiMUN 2011 Conference a huge success as both delegates and herself are used to.