APPROVAL PANEL
1. The Work of the Approval
Panel
- The main
objective for delegates at the start of the conference is to pass resolutions
- Each
committee will later debate the best resolutions, which will then either pass
or fail, depending on how many votes they get from delegates
- For General
Assembly Committees, a resolution that passes represents the shared opinion of
a committee and all passed resolutions will be sent to the President of the
Assembly who will choose which ones will be discussed in the full General
Assembly on the last day of the conference
- We expect
students to arrive at the conference with a lot of work already done on their
resolutions – in other words, they are ready to present it to other countries
and look for co-submitters
- The goal is
then to get the quota of co-submitters (which is a minimum of 5 countries)
- Once a
resolution is drafted, it must first of all be brought to the chair teams of
the committee
- Chair teams
check for errors and also whether the resolution is sufficiently debatable –
they can recommend that the delegate work on it again to correct errors or make
it more interesting to debate or they can accept it and send it forward to the
approval panel, completing a form which shows they have given it permission to
progress
- The form
along with the resolution are now brought to the approval panel by
administration staff
- The job of
the approval panel starts now
- The Approval
Panel checks that the grammar, spelling and layout are correct.
- Also, it is
essential to check whether the content of the resolution is LEGAL and whether its proposals are WITHIN THE RULES OF THE UNITED NATIONS,
see notes in Part 3 below.
2. Processing resolutions
The entire
process for getting a resolution through is outlined below:
- A delegate writes a resolution
- The delegate finds at least the
requested minimum number of co-submitters (co-submitters are
delegates who would like to debate the resolution, they are not necessarily
fully in favour of the resolution)
- The delegate takes the resolution
to the chair, who will check if it for errors and also whether it is sufficiently
debatable
- If the chair points out any
additional work to be done, the delegate must work on the resolution again if
the chair passes the resolution, the form to be sent to the approval panel must
be completed and administration staff deliver the resolution to the Approval
Panel for consideration
- The resolution is checked by the
Approval Panel for the first time
- If approved, administration staff
return it to the chair who then informs the delegate that their resolution has
passed and is now in the resolution pile for consideration for committee
debates and the process ends here/if not approved, administration staff return
it to the chair who returns it to the delegate to work on again according to
the feedback from the approval panel
- The delegate gives the resolution
to the chair to be sent to the approval panel a second time
- If approved, administration staff
return it to the chair who then informs the delegate that their resolution has
passed and is now in the resolution pile for consideration for committee
debates and the process ends here/If any mistakes are found, the delegate will
get one final chance to sort them out and submit the resolution to the Approval
Panel for a third time. The resolution is returned to the chair to be returned
to the delegate
- The delegate
works on the resolution again using the feedback from the approval panel
- The delegate
gives the resolution to the chair to be sent to the approval panel a third time
- The Approval Panel either accepts
or rejects the resolution.
- If approved,
administration staff return it to the chair who then informs the delegate that
their resolution has passed and is now in the resolution pile for consideration
for committee debates and the process ends here/ If rejected, the resolution will
not be entertained any further
3. Rules of
the Approval Panel
- A resolution cannot ask for a country to be
thrown out of the United Nations, however, it can recommend to take this
procedure into consideration
- No resolution should contain any clear budgetary
information, meaning it cannot be debated how much costs will be exactly and
where the funds will come from – financial investment or assistance can be
suggested in general terms
- The General Assembly cannot make compulsory
resolutions, meaning it cannot enforce any sanctions on countries not complying
with a resolution – it can however contain a clause suggesting that the Security
Council do so.
- The General Assembly cannot decide on any
offensive military actions, it can only send peacekeeping forces.
- Only information from up to one week before the
conference may be used in resolutions (in other words, the resolutions must be completely
up to date)
- Limits for clauses are between 6-8 pre-ambulatory
clauses and 7-9 operative clauses
Resolution_Check_Form.pdf