Committees

Teams will need to designate a member to each of the following committees:

• North Atlantic Council
• Military Committee
• Political Affairs Committee
• Committee on Emerging Security Challenges

It is also suggested that each team designate a “Runner” who will pass along situational information across the committees as digital communication devices are strictly forbidden while in committee.

Delegation Responsibilities

The overriding responsibility of a delegation to the International model NATO conference is to represent the assigned country in the most realistic and effective way possible. It is you responsibility to ensure that the national interests of the country you represent are presented and taken into account in the work of drafting and passing communiqués. This responsibility means that you will need to know what the national interests of your country actually are and how best to represent those interests. The identification of national interests will require detailed preparation on the character of the country leading to detailed positions on a wide variety of issues, especially those identified on the agenda. Your overall responsibility is to adequately prepare yourself on a variety of fronts in order to ensure that your country plays its proper role in the Model.

Your responsibility is also to develop and stay within the character of your country. This is not always an easy task. You may find yourself having to represent views with which you may personally disagree or, you may wish to see a more radical position taken on an issue than your country would ever contemplate. However, you must put aside your personal predilections and political preferences. Your task is to become the government of the country you represent and to faithfully represent the politics of that government. Preparation is the key to meeting this responsibility.

Delegation Preperation 

Know your country! The key to success in representing your country is to know it inside and out. You may wish to begin by getting a good book on the history of your country and having the delegation read it. A good working knowledge of its history will be invaluable in developing the character of the country. Having developed an historical understanding of the country, you will then want to study its contemporary domestic, economic, social, and political situation. You should know what makes your country “tick” and you should know something about its plans, hopes, aspiration, and problems. You should develop a realistic picture of the political, economic, and social tapestry of the country you represent.

The history and character of your country is not something that will suddenly appear in your mind. It will not spontaneously spring into your psyche. You will, as individuals and as a delegation, have to read, read, and read! Your library should have some general books on your country. The United States Department of State publishes an Area Handbook on each of the countries which are members of NATO.

Know NATO! With a firm knowledge of your own country, you will have to learn about NATO. What is NATO? Why was NATO formed? What is its structure and function? How specifically does the North Atlantic Council and each of the committees that are stimulated work? What are their responsibilities and powers? How long has your country been a member of NATO? Why did it become a member? What has your country’s past position on major NATO issues? What issues would your country initiate? How active is your country in NATO? What position would your country take on issues it would not initiate but would have to vote on? What are the salient decisions of NATO in the last few years? What has been your country’s position on these decision? To augment your library resources, pertinent publications are included in the preparatory package mailed to you. You will find the NATO website at http://www.nato.int very useful.

 Divide the work! Every delegate will have to have a firm knowledge of the character of your country, regardless of the organ on which he or she sits. One way of achieving this is to have each member of the delegation do detailed research on his or her assigned Committee agenda and then present the results of that research to the rest of the delegates. In that way everyone will be familiar with the work of all Committees.

You may wish to consider having the delegation create position paper and or working papers. A position paper would develop your country’s position on a particular issue, topic or agenda item. It would therefore include a statement of your country’s goals and aspirations embodied in the principles upon which the country’s position is based.

Whether or not you have a full set of position and working papers — which are purely for the internal use of your delegation — your country will have positions on the agenda items and it will be your responsibility to articulate and present those position at the Model.

Draft Communiqués! The task of each committee is to reach consensus on its particular agenda topics and to prepare draft language for the communiqué to be passed by the North Atlantic Council (NAC). In cases where a committee cannot agree on all the language, draft texts may be submitted to NAC with the disputed text in brackets. 

Country Characterization 

The best delegations at the best Models are those which have so internalized the character of their country that every action reflects the national interests of that country and this is conveyed twenty-four hours a day in the diplomatic activities engaged in by the delegations. If you represent Italy you must become an Italian, in thought and action. If you represent France, you must become French in your outlook on NATO and global issues. The aim of the Model is to bring together the Foreign Ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. You are those Foreign Ministers and their high level experts on the various organs of NATO. You must become a national of the country you represent. If you do that, you will surely get the maximum benefit from participation in the stimulation.