SPECIAL POLITICAL AND DECOLONIZATION COMMITTEE

topic summary

In 1988, the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces received the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Secretary General during that time, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, characterized peacekeeping operations by declaring that their essence is “the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as instruments of war”. Despite these good intentions with peace at the core, peacekeeping forces hold the capacity to inflict harm - quite a lot of it, in fact. In October of 2010, UN peacekeepers who had been brought to Haiti following an earthquake inadvertently brought cholera with them via a leak in their contaminated base that caused a massive outbreak. As a result, over 10,000 Haitians died of cholera, and hundreds of thousands became sick with it. 

In 1936, sociologist Robert Merton created the framework of “unintended consequences of purposive social action”. Essentially, he articulated that well-intentioned decisions and deliberate steps taken as parts of such decisions can end up doing more harm than good, possibly in quite unexpected ways. Applying this framework to the tragic cholera outbreak in Haiti, we will together investigate and discuss the unintended consequences of UN peacekeeping operations.

Director’s Letter

Dear Delegates,

It is with great honor that I welcome you all to the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (SPECPOL) of HNMUN 2024! My name is Hannah Shin, and I am excited to serve as your director this year.

To start off, here’s a bit about me: I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I am a sophomore at Harvard College studying a mix of Economics, Government, and Social Anthropology. 

In terms of Model UN engagement, I am a delegate on Harvard’s Intercollegiate Model United Nations travel team and am serving as Director of Business at HMUN 2024, our high school conference. Last year, I served as an Assistant Director of the WHO at HNMUN 2023 and of Operations for HMUN 2023. 

Outside of Model UN, I serve as Co-Director of the Harvard Undergraduate Legal Committee, as Co-President of International Relations on Campus, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Harvard International Relations Council. I am also a Harvard College Representative for the Boston Intercollegiate Government. In my free time, I enjoy hanging out with people I love, listening to music, watching TV, taking nature walks, and writing fiction.

I am looking forward to directing SPECPOL and meeting all of you in-person. I hope that this topic will encourage delegates to engage in respectful, creative, and meaningful ideation and conversation, culminating in proposals that align with and spark reflections of the values of SPECPOL.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to the committee email. I would be more than happy to chat with you about this committee, our topic, or MUN in general! Take good care and see you in February!

Sincerely, 

Hannah Shin

Director, Special Political and Decolonization Committee

Harvard National Model United Nations 2024