Position Papers

With every conference you attend, you are required to write a position paper. A position paper is when you write a essay on a topic given by your chair to explain your country's perspective. Position papers can be generally difficult because sometimes it is hard to word ideas on a paper when you do not necessarily agree with them. For example, the last conference I went to was one at the actual United Nations. I was assigned to represent the country on Sudan on the topic of a separatist movement. If you know anything about the country of Sudan, you will know that the country is very corrupt. But being that I'm representing Sudan, I had to make it seem like Sudan weren't held responsible for the actions that were going on such as the genocide for an example. Using diplomacy in my position paper helped lead me and my partner to win an award. I think that position papers are probaly the second hardest thing to do at any conference because you must think of the country you represent and not yourself. Taking MUN for a full semester, I have written three position papers in which all were spectacular in my opinion. The first position paper I written was to help a fellow friend in my class, Marcell Urena, to help her prepare for a conference at Harvard University that I did not attend. I represented the country Benin and the topic was to discuss the Iran-Iraq war. The second paper was the one I wrote for the Philadelphia conference, representing Brazil for freedom of speech and the press. And the last paper I did was to represent Sudan for separatist movements. Overall, I liked all my position papers being that I put a lot of effort into each paper. Although I only won an award for one paper, I believe all three were award winning papers being that all had creative resolutions that could one day achieve peace in the world.