Remember that each country has a different perspective and different priorities.  Your approach would be more effective if you consider the positions of the other countries and what compromises they might be willing to make.

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This scenario is an introduction to the issues you will be discussing in the ICONS simulation. It also gives a very brief overview of some of the interests and policies of other nations in the program. The scenario and country profiles are not meant to be the principal resource for the development of your policies or the conduct of your negotiations. They provide a starting point. You must now research your own country's history, foreign policy, and relations with the other countries involved in this simulation. Your challenge will be to come up with a better agreement than the experts and real world negotiators have found thus far.

Please note that after the program begins, real world developments will not affect the simulation.

Conflict and Cooperation
Terrorism

The increasingly interdependent world is characterized by fewer trade and border restrictions. Global interdependence coupled with the advent of truly global financial and telecommunications systems have created a new brand of criminals – international criminals who extend their operations beyond national borders. Drug trafficking, illegal arms sales, and terrorism are seen as legitimate threats to national security, while the ability of international crime groups to transfer money between countries allows them to continue to elude the grip of traditional crime prevention entities. Their operations are similar to that of multinational corporations, with global reach and infrastructure.

Terrorism [analysis] continues to plague the international community. Even though terrorism affects most countries, there has been little cooperation at the international level aimed at combating this phenomenon. Indeed, there are only nine major multilateral conventions that states have proposed for combating terrorism. The lack of consensus over how to handle terrorist threats worldwide was seen in August 1998 when U.S. strikes against suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan and Sudan were condemned by many countries, including a pointed comment by then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin, calling the cruise missile attacks "deplorable". The following are examples of other terrorist groups and situations that illustrate the universal/international nature of the problem:

• In Europe, the ongoing Anglo-Irish peace process still prompts violent reactions.

• Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has spread to France from Algeria and other countries of North Africa and continues to be a reality in the Middle East.

• Islamic fundamentalists in many Middle Eastern countries often rely on terrorism as a means of making demands both at home and abroad.

• The Basque terrorist group ETA continues to commit terrorist acts in Spain.

• Germany's Turkish minority continues to be the subject of terrorist violence.

• Kurdish minorities continue to clash with Turkish nationals, demanding better representation.

• South and Central American countries continue to be riddled with leftist insurgencies and terrorist attacks.

In addition to these terrorist situations, several new and potential forms of terrorism are emerging. The sarin gas attack in a Japanese subway in 1995 highlighted the ease with which chemical and biological agents can be delivered against a population. And a recent U.S. military publication noted the vulnerability of the world's communication network and infrastructure to a "cyberattack" over the Internet. Chemical, biological and information warfare, combined with an apparent "internationalization" of terrorist groups, has thus raised the stakes in the international fight against terrorism.

Unlike past decades when most terrorism was conducted by groups who sought to achieve some concrete political aim (the African National Congress, Basque separatist ETA, Irish Republican Army, and Palestinian Liberation Organization, among others), fewer terrorist acts seem to have clear purposes today. It appears that the "statement" or the act itself is the most important reason for carrying out an attack. How else can the Aum Shinrikyo religious sect’s 1995 nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway be explained? Terrorism has also become more global in scope, with attacks occurring beyond previously defined "dangerous" areas, for example, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community building in Buenos Aires, and the more recent embassy bombings in Africa.

Counter-terrorism databases list 3,000 suspected terrorist groups. The more successful of these have plenty of money to support training, the acquisition of weaponry (along with explosives and chemical and biological agents), and the planning and implementation of large-scale attacks. (This is an especially worrisome point, given the low cost of carrying out the bombing of the U.S. federal building in Oklahoma City.) Aum Shinrikyo had estimated assets of about $1 billion, and had taken advantage of the fall of the Soviet Union and economic problems in Russia to equip itself with sophisticated weaponry. Much of the weaponry available on the international black market, including tons of Semtex, the Czech-manufactured plastic explosive, and tens of thousands of Kalishnikov rifles, comes from the arsenals of the former Warsaw Pact nations. Osama bin Laden, the Saudi expatriate whose group is alleged to have orchestrated the August 1998 attack on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, has a personal fortune estimated to be as high as $300 million.

Some argue that terrorist activities are more random and less associated with causes.  In the past decades, terrorists would attack and claim responsibility in order to be recognized.  Increasingly, now terrorist attacks are without an identifiable cause, making it more difficult to target potential terrorists.  As terrorism has become more international in scope, dealing with it has required more international cooperation, as may be seen in the investigations and trials of the suspects alleged to be responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103, the embassies in Africa, and the USS Cole. In addition, cooperation is obviously necessary in preventing these attacks in the first place.

With the evolution of technology, a new type of terrorism has emerged: Cyber-terrorism [analysis]. Recently, official web sites of the Japanese government were violated by computer hackers. The hackers placed a link to a pornographic site on the Science and Technology Agency homepage, posted messages attacking Japan over the 1937 Nanking massacre, and important data, including the population census, was erased. Another act of cyber-terrorism is e-bombs. These are viruses in the form of email messages that can destroy entire hard drives and cause networks to fail. Governments and corporations increasingly face technological security issues resulting from cyber-terrorism as they come to rely more on the Internet for conducting business ranging from posting government information to transferring monetary funds.

International banking must figure prominently into discussions of international crime because of the connection of money laundering to contraband trafficking, illegal arms sales, and terrorist financing, as well as business fraud, which is increasingly capable of crossing international borders. There have been international efforts to get countries to develop and enforce anti-money laundering statutes. These efforts include provisions under the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and the establishment of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) by the G­7 Economic Summit in Paris in 1989.

There are, however, complications in these efforts: 1) the increased penetration of worldwide financial systems by organized crime groups; 2) increased money laundering where anti­money laundering laws are rare; 3) differences in levels of compliance with international anti­money laundering standards, specifically in Asia and Latin America as compared with the U.S., Canada and Western Europe; and 4) the interest in achieving the fastest possible system for international transfers of payments, which benefits both banking/business and criminal money laundering groups.

The International Conflict and Cooperation Conferences focus on international efforts, such as that by Interpol and the UN to control international terrorism and cyberterrorism, as well as actions that can be taken to prevent the money laundering that allows these groups to flourish.

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Global Environment   
Genetically Modified Organisms

Environmental issues are inherently international in nature insofar as activities in one region of the world inevitably impact all other regions.  The typical anecdote is that of the butterfly that flaps its wings in Amazonia, causing a wind that blows forest fires through the plains in Africa, that eventually becomes a monsoon in Southeast Asia, that in turn pushes tidal waves throughout the Pacific Rim, and so on.  The same can be said of our daily activities.  The effect human living has on the environment has increasingly become more detrimental, especially as the Earth is forced to inhabit over 6 billion people.

Efforts to become more efficient in growing food and feeding the increasing masses has led scientists to pursue new forms of agriculture.  Biotechnologists have developed Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) [analysis] that are genetically-altered plants, seeds, and foods.  The use and development of GMOs is a political hot-potato, pitting activists against agro-businesses .  

Indeed, GMOs have some potentially positive aspects.  Producers of GMOs argue that the foods they produce can help thousands of children receive more essential vitamins and minerals in the foods they receive through international aid programs.  While rice is a staple food, beta-carotine enhanced rice would not only provide the necessary nutritional calories, but also the benefits of an essential vitamin.  Potentially, producers could develop GMOs that would be able to adjust to diverse climates, weather conditions, and/or soil conditions Another reason producers laude GMOs is because seeds and plants are created that are resistant to insects, thus forgoing the need to use insecticides which pollute groundwater.

For example, a breed of monarch caterpillars survive on milkweed pods.  It has been found, however, that the pollen of genetically-modified corn spreads to the milkweed pods.  In areas where GMO corn was used and where monarch caterpillars live, the corn pollen has killed the monarch caterpillars, and by consequence, the monarch butterflies.  Indeed the reduction of monarch butterflies in turn affects other species.

Not only GMO producers hold patents to control fertility, they have also patented scientific processes that produce disease-prone plants that require certain chemicals to ward off destruction, control when (and whether) plants flower and sprout, and how quickly crops age.

Another problem associated with GMO foods is the health-risks associated with them.  Recently, taco shells were recalled from the shelves of grocery stores throughout the United States after GMO corn that had not been approved for human consumption was mixed into the ingredients.  Studies also indicate that some GMOs, when ingested, cause resistance to antibiotics.  Concerns about health and environment prompted Europeans to pressure the European Parliament to amend a EU law to make GMO producers liable for any damage done to EU citizens.  However, the European Parliament rejected the amendment.

Governments, and thus intergovernmental organizations, are in difficult positions regarding GMOs.  On one hand, GMOs offer potentially useful benefits, with agro-businesses lobbying states to remain open to GMO production.  On the other hand, governments are under a lot of pressure for citizen groups such as GeneWatch UK and ActionAid to restrain biotechnologists from tampering with nature.  One French farmer who earned a reputation as a radical when he plowed his tractor through a McDonald's window has gone so far as to destroy experimental GMO rice crops in France.  

Because GMOs have both the potential to help and the potential to harm, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is prudent in its position regarding policies on GMOs.  

The Global Environment Conferences focus on the international communities responsibilities regarding the use and production of GMOs.  

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International Economics
Intellectual Property Rights

The international economic system has become increasingly intertwined and interconnected, particularly due to phenomenal advances in communications, medicine, and technology over the last few decades. With this development, inventors, artists, scientists, and more importantly, the companies they work for, want to secure claims on their inventions, songs, and pharmaceuticals. In many ways, these claims only serve to make the multinational corporations (MNCs) richer, while increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. Instead of having the cutting-edge machinery to farm thousands of acres of land, a large percentage of the world’s farmers still rely on animals and their own human power. Instead of learning by sitting in hi-tech classrooms, some children must forego school to work in order to help their families survive.

Intellectual property rights (IPR) [analysis] are the copyrights, patents, and trademarks that protect the artistic, literary, scientific, and original work of inventors, artists, scientists, and the companies that promote their works, processes, or procedures. Several international treaties have been established to protect IPR, with the most recent being the World Trade Organization's TRIPS accord.

· The Berne Convention: protects original literary, artistic, and scientific works

· The Budapest Treaty: protects scientific processes and procedures

· The Geneva Convention: protects audio recordings

· The Madrid Convention: serves to simplify trademark registration procedures in foreign countries

· The Paris Convention: protects inventions

· The Universal Copyright Convention: protects original works in a way similar to the Berne Convention, but grants leeway to LDCs for academic purposes

· The World Trade Organization TRIPS Accord:  international attempt to governs trade-related aspects of IPR by setting common international rules; provides a place to resolve international disputes regarding IPR matters

The significance of intellectual property rights is that they guarantee that the person or company that originated the work will be recognized for their contribution as well as, in many cases, compensated financially for their work. Those who produce original works argue that if an original work was not protected, then that person or company could control the entire use of the product and would keep it secret from others. Thus, protecting the work promotes a transfer of knowledge and technology. Similarly, protecting products also fosters innovation that benefits everyone. From a capitalist perspective, when someone produces a work and is compensated for it, then others are encouraged to improve upon that product to make it more efficient and accessible to greater numbers of people. Thus, protecting products encourages competition and innovation. For consumers, however, the argument is put forth that knowledge should be the heritage of humankind and should be shared with those who need it most, in particular, less developed countries.

However, people hold different views about protecting intellectual property rights. Indeed the primary split occurs between the EDCs and the LDCs. The EDCs think that protecting a producer’s work is essential to fostering further work and is a means to ensure that capital is not lost to piracy and uncompensated reproductions of that work. This point is confirmed by the several treaties proposed and ratified by the EDCs that have become international law.

The LDCs, on the other hand, feel that as countries trying to further their own development, adhering to these treaties and enforcing international law---established by EDCs---regarding intellectual property rights is burdensome and hinders their development potential. With the huge disparities in development between the EDCs and the LDCs, the LDCs argue that the capital they gain from reproducing works without compensation to the original producer is essential to their growth, while it is an insignificant percentage of lost capital to the EDCs. Additionally, as struggling economies, employing additional government workers to implement and enforce international IPR laws is costly. That money could instead be used to further development so that, once stable, they could more readily adopt and enforce these laws.

LDCs also take issue with another aspect of IPR. They point to the refusal of the United States to sign the Paris Convention in 1883. At that time, the United States claimed that it could not adopt this policy because it would hinder its development. Countries like the United States should recognize the position LDCs are in, should realize that the EDCs did not develop overnight, and that similar indiscretions occurred during their own development. In the name of progress, human rights, the environment, and even international law were violated. Now, however, the EDCs expect LDC development, but expect them to play by different rules.

Some policy makers argue that it is not in the interest in EDCs to aid or to grant concessions to LDCs.  They argue that LDCs must make the progress on their own, otherwise the EDCs are just adding to the population growth, increasing health problems, and environmental degradation while neglecting their own growth and development.  As evidence in support of this point, most EDCs contribute less than 1% of their entire GDP toward foreign aid, at least indirectly supporting this notion.

Some policy makers argue that the growth and development of LDCs is in the interest of the EDCs.  On one hand, there is a purely self-interested reason for EDCs to promote sustainable development in LDCs---because the EDCs will reap the benefits of having access to more markets where they can sell their goods and uphold IPR laws.  On the other hand, there is also a humanitarian argument for LDC development in that with development, fewer people will suffer from the atrocities of poverty, as more people can be educated, receive generic versions of pharmaceuticals, or advance their technology.  

In many cases, respecting and upholding IPR is a contingent for LDCs to have open trade relations with the EDCs. For instance, the National Economic Advisor to the US president is responsible for determining which countries sufficiently enforce IPR. In turn, if the US trades with these countries, but they continually violate IPR, the United States will threaten to cut off trade relations unless measures are taken to uphold IPR, as was the case with South Korea in the mid-1990s.

The International Economic Conferences further explore the implications of the several conventions that dictate policy on intellectual property rights and how they affect international economics through EDC and LDC relations.

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World Health
Organ Trafficking

In this day and age when capitalism is the dominant economic determinant, having "beaten out" the socialist state-run economic system, it should come as little surprise that even bodily organs and tissue have become a world commodity. No longer are humans bought and sold just for slavery or women for prostitution and brides, but now humans--- particularly women and children---are being bought and sold for their organs to be harvested.  Also, in several countries, poor people resort to selling their organs. And in many places, unsuspecting people are victimized for their organs. Indeed the effects of organ trafficking [analysis] are only detrimental to health and abusive of human rights throughout the world.

The demand for organs for transplants exists worldwide, although a majority of the organ transplants that take place occur in EDCs. There is a dire need---and demand for--- kidneys and other organs, though the supply is far short of the need. However, the demand for these organs far exceeds the supply, creating an underground international market to help meet these demands.

As of yet, there are no international conventions or treaties that specifically seek to eliminate and ban organ trafficking or the transport of persons for the purpose of harvesting their organs. Indeed, protecting individuals from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment is the intent of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. Nonetheless, few measures have been taken by the international community to address the many crimes associated with organ trafficking [analysis].

In the United States, the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act made it illegal "for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation if the transfer affects interstate commerce." Nonetheless, this has not stopped networks from bringing in harvested organs from abroad. In the late 1990s, two Chinese nationals were arrested in New York for allegedly attempting to sell body organs from executed Chinese prisoners for transplant operations. This incidence occurred at about the same time that an offer appeared on E-Bay, an Internet auction site, for the sale of a kidney. Nor has it stopped children from illegally being brought into the country to be used for any number of organ, tissue, or medical experimental purposes. Children are sold and transported from any number of LDCs to the United States and other EDCs where their organs are harvested for transplants.

In Canada, it is reported that annually, 30-50 citizens who are desperate for transplants go to China, India, and the Philippines for transplants.  To facilitate the needs of these patients, a Canadian businessman has set himself up as a 'coordinator' between those in need of kidneys, and those abroad who are able to supply them.  However, one risk is that even though some people have paid for and even have the surgery scars indicating they've had transplants, they return home only to find out they've been scammed.

In Japan, it goes against cultural practices to donate organs, but not to accept organs.  Thus, organs are in great demand since supplies are limited.  This imbalance in supply and demand has opened up a huge illegal market of organs in Japan.  In response, in 1997 the Japanese diet passed legislation banning the illegal procurement of organs. 

In 2000, two Thai doctors were arrested for misdiagnosing patients as brain dead in order to procure their organs.  They were then charged with conspiring to sell kidneys to wealthy patients in need of transplants.  And in Israel, there have been reports of Israelis traveling to neighboring countries (especially Egypt) to buy kidneys for transplant from poor immigrant workers. 

Among the most recent efforts to address issues of organ trafficking took place in 1999 after Danish and German authorities initiated investigations upon hearing allegations of organ trafficking in Europe.  The Council of Europe, a body of the EU, put forth a Protocol to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, on transplantation of organs and tissues of human origin, in order to bring attention to the issue of organ trafficking and robbery that affects both Europeans and those donors from abroad.

In many countries, children have become commodities for their organs and tissue. For instance, in the mid-1990s, reporters in Brazil investigated adoptions of Brazilian children by European couples. They suspected that in many cases it was possible that children were not being adopted into families, but rather to harvest their organs and tissues. Their reports were substantiated by the fact that the number of donors legally registered who donate organs for transplant in Europe is far fewer than the actual number of transplants conducted.  

Even more recently in Russia, the grandmother and uncle of a five-year old boy whose mother abandoned him at birth were charged with trying to sell the boy to a criminal gang.  They, in turn, intended to sell him on the underground organ market.

In response to these and many similar atrocities, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has raised this issue with the General Assembly under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Under this convention, it would be illegal to sell children for the purpose to harvest their organs. As of August 2001, 70 countries signed on to the convention.

The people of developing countries tend to be the victims of organ trafficking, where children become objects of trade for their organs and tissue and the poor have to resort to selling their organs to continue to live. Not only does organ trafficking challenge ethical medical standards, it has serious repercussions regarding communicable diseases that can be spread through transplanting organs or tissue from unknown donors. In many cases illegally obtained organs have been harvested from poor people in developing countries who need to sell their organs in order to feed their families and themselves.

In India, kidney donation is a lucrative enterprise. In 1999, police arrested 10 people and shut down a private hospital in connection with a kidney donation racket.  Again in 2000, two doctors in India were arrested for illegally procuring kidneys from over 60 people.  Poor people are particularly susceptible to the lures of such rackets because they are offered money or jobs in return for donating their organs. Even though in 1994 legislation was put into place in India banning such practices, underground operations continue. Reports have been made of rich men from the Gulf region marrying Indian women literally for their organs, and then divorcing them after the transplants had been done, referred to as "kidney marriage."

Indeed the donors might only be harming themselves if the organ removal is not done under sanitary conditions, in many cases not living long enough to receive their payments. Similarly, the recipient might be unknowingly inviting disease into him/herself as the health conditions in many of these countries are very poor and unsanitary, in turn, increasing the possibility that a donor may be carrying an unsuspected or unknown disease of some sort. Likewise, diseases that are in recession may not even appear until months or years later. It is also quite possible that the donor’s family medical history goes unreported to the recipient, making it quite possible that the organ may only introduce disease into the recipient. Furthermore, in most cases the ethical ramifications of obtaining organs from unsuspecting victims who were operated on under the pretense of needing an appendectomy or gall bladder operation are not even considered.

One particular country at the center of the organ trafficking controversy is China, where organ procurement is a government-run business. Executed prisoners’ organs are removed for transplants both at home and abroad. Often times, those on death row have undergone extensive medical tests so that doctors can pre-match the prisoners with those future recipients of their organs. Increasingly, executions are even expedited in order to meet the needs of the paying recipients.  China has been the recipient of much international scrutiny and criticism for its practices.

The World Health Conferences further explore the plethora of issues involving organ trafficking.

Human Rights
Cloning

In The 6th Day, Arnold Scwartzenager plays a character whose entire life crashes down around him when he discovers he's been cloned and his clone is leading his life.  Not too long ago, it was only in science fiction where humans could be cloned.  Now, cloning is on the cutting edge of modern science and technology.  

Dolly, the first cloned adult mammal, was just the beginning of what is possible.  Since then, the entire human genome has been mapped and coded, human organs can be cloned for organ transplants, and now scientists possess the knowledge to clone a human being.  But is this another case of building the atomic bomb?  Robert Oppenheimer, the lead physicist who headed The Manhattan Project realized too late he was too caught up in the scientific challenge and pursuit of knowledge to consider the moral and ethical ramifications of producing a weapon on mass destruction.

Human cloning [analysis] is not only a controversial issue, but a complex one.  The implications of cloning have invoked ethical concerns as well as religious condemnation.  Widespread cloning would also force consideration of practical concerns such as world population and natural resources.  Furthermore, ability to choose the biological sex of a child may further complicate gender issues in some countries where male babies are preferred over females.  

However, scientists argue that cloning, as an essential tool for stem cell research, is the key to furthering research on degenerative diseases and neurological disorders including multiple schlerosis and Alzheimer's.  Additionally, scientists who want to work on biotechnological development are likely to move to countries that facilitate the research, rather than move to ban it.  Countries like the United States, Canada, and Japan would suffer 'brain drain' of biotechnologists relocating to countries that encourage their work.

The international community is making steps toward regulation of cloning.  UNESCO, the  United Nation's agency that deals with science, has drafted a resolution banning human cloning, as has the World Health Organization.  However, these carry no authority, as they are position papers on these organizations' policies regarding cloning.  For a resolution to carry any weight, the UN member-states would have to adopt an international ban.  

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