This gaming activity simulates a policy-making environment in which time is an issue and creative problem solving is required. Throughout the simulation, students must act as politicians in a diplomatic fashion that would be proper as a representative from their assigned country-team. Students are expected to explore policy proposals and communicate ideas over ICONSnet, a website dedicated to the activity. There are ten conferences -- two conferences for each of five issue/subject areas. At the first conference for an issue area, the students will work to make their ideas more clear to other delegates. Also, students will be given the "task" of drafting a plan of action for solving the problem at hand for a particular issue. This will be completed before the start of and/or during the second conference session. Conference agendas are posted on the CPIN web-site.

The following nations will participate in the activity and be simulated by student groups

To begin your research on each of these countries you might want to take a look at the information available on the CPIN WebPages under Research Library. From the CPIN website (http://www.lib.uconn.edu/~mboyer/) choose Research Library on the left-hand side of the page. Please note that other countries may be added to the simulation prior to its starting date. You will be notified by SIMCON in the event that additional countries are added to the simulation.

This simulation activity can be thought of as a game with five different parts or subgames. Each part or subgame focuses on a particular issue that is described in this scenario. The activity is intended to focus on a few of the main issues in the world today and how these issues are related to each other. The activity is not intended to cover all international issues that exist today. The main subgames are:

Although the issue areas are presented as separate parts or subgames of the activity, remember that the issues are related/interconnected to one another. As an example, issues of drug trafficking affect economic development and human rights. It may be less clear how economic development might affect environmental, health and human rights, but these issues need to be considered when discussing economic development. An example from your daily life might be how a poor report card (a school issue) may affect your ability to choose what you do in your free time (a personal issue).

There will be two one-hour conferences scheduled for each of the issue areas to be discussed and negotiated in this simulation. The first conference will serve to identify a country's position on an issue and begin to draft a plan for negotiation. Most of the time between the first and the second conferences will be spent negotiating a plan of action to solve the problems presented by an issue. Remember that your country will not be participating in every conference. SIMCON (the control center of the activity) will monitor these conferences. These conferences will be held from 3:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. beginning January 8, 2001 (see Conference Schedule). All countries will attend eight conferences, covering four issue areas. Even if your country is not invited to a particular conference, you may still discuss the issue on your own with other countries using the message board at ICONSnet. Please note---If your country feels it is vital to your national interest to be included in a particular conference, you may petition (request of) SIMCON to also be included in that conference.

It is common for teams to begin the simulation with the intent to wait for other country-teams to take the lead. This creates an unrealistic simulation of foreign policy and international negotiations, and makes for a slow start to the exercise. Students are urged to send their first policy statements on every issue in which their country is involved on the first day of the simulation. In addition, students are strongly encouraged to have their ideas developed and a plan of action set prior to each conference. Flexibility and knowledge are necessary for country-teams to react quickly to new developments during real-time conferences. Each team should continue to send daily messages on their issues.

Communiqués – (statements to the world community) -- at minimum each country-team will issue five communiqués (diplomatic language for statements) including one from each topic area: drug trafficking, global climate change, child labor, communicable diseases, and immigration/refugee issues. Country delegates/players should send well-developed messages to the global community each week of the simulation. These messages are diplomatic statements of your country-team's official position on each of the five issue areas. A good negotiator takes into consideration many factors, including how your proposal will work and how it will be enforced.

Bilateral Negotiations -- in addition to the global communiqués statements, each team must actively engage in bilateral (two-sided) negotiations. Your country-team should send messages to other countries in an attempt to build alliances and receive feedback on your draft proposals. As in the real world, diplomats attempt to win the favor of other nations through bilateral negotiations prior to global conferences.

Hint -- your country has a goal/s as do all the other countries involved. As a result of this fact, you and your fellow country-teammates might want to consider the following questions: what issues are you willing to compromise? What compromises will you be willing to make? What compromises do you and your teammates think the other countries will consider reasonable? Remember that each country has a different perspective and different priorities. It isn't realistic for your country team to believe it will get everything it wants, so these questions are important to think about.

A Successful Simulation -- The key to a successful simulation is the research that a country team does throughout the activity. You will need a thorough understanding of your country’s position on each of the issue areas to effectively reach a "happy medium" between being creative and realistic while negotiating. You need to be ready to think and act like a negotiator from whatever country your team is playing.

The setting for this simulation is Summer 2001. The simulation is set in the future to encourage you to be creative in developing your own policies instead of duplicating real-life events and decisions as they happen.

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. Key terms are hyperlinked to the CPIN Glossary of Terms. The scenario is not meant to be the main resource for the development of your policies or in conducting your negotiations. It is a starting point. You now need to research your own nation's history, foreign policy, and relations with the other countries involved in this simulation. After the program begins, real world developments will not affect the ICONS simulation. Your challenge will be to come up with a better agreement than what international negotiators have developed.

1998 marked the 50^th anniversary of the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948. The UDHR guarantees many individual, social, economic, and political rights, including the rights of mothers and children to special care and assistance [Article 25] and to make elementary education mandatory for all children [Article 26]. Later UN efforts, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child have further expanded the concept of human rights. The year 2000 marks the halfway point of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education, officially proclaimed in 1994 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Almost every nation believes in human rights to some degree, and seeks to define, protect, and enforce those rights. One of the major problems in the protection of human rights is the inability of governments to agree on exactly what "human rights" means. The definition of human rights remains a subject of international debate, as proven during the December 1998 World Conference on the Declaration of Human Rights. Highly developed nations, including the U.S., continue to define human rights largely in political terms (free speech, free press, right to vote, etc.). Many developing countries maintain that economic rights to food, shelter, and education are more important than the rights of free speech and political representation.

The debate over the definition of human rights is only part of a much larger struggle over human rights violations. The nations of the world are constantly debating which countries are in violation of the more commonly accepted definition of human rights. The most frequent targets of criticism are China, Cuba, North Korea, Israel, and the military governments of Africa and Latin America. The U.S., in turn, has been labeled a human rights violator for its continued and frequent use of the death penalty. Countries (like people) are quick to defend their actions and even quicker to point out violations from other countries.

Even after nations agree on whether another country is violating human rights, it is difficult to determine how to get the violating country to change. The concept of sovereignty prevents one nation from interfering with the internal business of another. Yet the world community has determined some cases of human rights abuse that have required international attention regardless of sovereignty. The reaction of the Chinese government to democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and apartheid in South Africa are two examples of human rights issues in which many nations of the world felt justified in their involvement.

As nations discuss human rights standards and violations, they must consider what can and should be done to protect human rights on a global scale. Countries may, however, hold differing views on the issue of human rights because of their cultures or particular political or economic conditions. Hence, as in every other area of international negotiation, the issue of sovereignty and questions of enforcement will weigh heavily on the debate over human rights.

Children have been in some way included in most of the nearly 80 treaties and declarations on human rights in this century. The first major step on behalf of children taken by the United Nations was creation of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in December 1946. The 1959 Declaration on the Rights of the Child was the first United Nations statement written to protect the rights of children, but served more as a moral framework (guiding) than an official document that countries needed to follow. A global agreement on children's rights finally came together in the form of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989. The Convention's 54 articles cover topics ranging from a child's right to be free from sexual and economic exploitation to the right to education, health care, and economic opportunity. Article 32 of the Convention specifically details that Parties recognize children's rights to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous. Furthermore, work can't interfere with the child's education, or be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. By September 1995, 178 countries had accepted the Convention.

International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 138 on the Minimum Age for Employment serves as the principal standard on child labor. This convention, passed in 1973 and signed by over 60 nations, defines the term "child labor" as any economic activity performed by a person under the age of 15. Those signing the Convention are required to set a minimum work age standard of 15 years, although there are exceptions for economically underdeveloped countries to utilize a minimum age of 14 years.

Convention 138 defines the term "child labor" as work performed by children that takes advantage of them or which impairs their development. This definition does not include certain types of "light work" performed by children part-time (such as working on their parents’ farm). Convention 138 defines "light work" as work that is not likely to harm a child's health or development or prevent school attendance, and specifies a minimum age of 13 years (12 years for developing countries). Convention 138 also prohibits any child under the age of 18 from performing hazardous work--that is, work that is likely to jeopardize his or her health, safety or morals.

The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) is a joint UN/ILO initiative established in 1992 to assist countries in the elimination of child labor. This initiative categorizes the following forms of child labor as intolerable: children working under forced labor conditions and in bondage/slavery; children in hazardous working conditions and occupations; very young working children (under 12 years of age); and girls working as prostitutes.

The ILO estimates there are at least 250 million working children between the ages of 5 and 14 in developing countries. Of these, about 120 million are estimated to be working full-time, while the rest combine work with school or other activities. The majority of the world's working children are found in Asia (61 percent), followed by Africa (32 percent), and Latin America and the Caribbean (7 percent). While Asia has the highest number of child workers, Africa has the highest proportion of children working, with 41 percent of children between five and 14 years old engaged in some form of economic activity. Child labor still exists in developed countries, though to a lesser extent. The problem has grown in Central and Eastern European countries in recent years as a result of the transition from centrally planned economies (communist) to market economies (free market). Reliable national statistics on child labor are rare, and when available, often incomplete.

Several key elements of concern related to child labor include:

• Child workers are often pushed toward dangerous occupations and industries exposed to serious health and safety hazards.

• Children aren't fully developed and therefore are more vulnerable to suffer from exhaustion and the dangerous effects from chemical exposure. This is in addition to the debilitating/deforming effects of hard labor on the developing human body.

• The impact of excessive labor on children can have an effect on their intellectual development/ability to learn. Although many working children combine work and school, most of them lack significant educational opportunities.

The most vulnerable child laborers are those abused in slavery conditions and other forced labor systems. The most common of these practices is debt bondage, in which children work to pay off a debt or other obligations brought on by their family. There are also less recognized types of child slavery and forced labor by which rural children are lured to the city with false promises of work. Here, they may be led into domestic service or sweatshops or become victims of sexual misconduct or abuse. Children are also being used in drug trafficking in the major cities of Asia and Latin America and are victims of drug trafficking organized by gangs or other criminal networks.

Recent Developments in Child Labor

Until fairly recently, child labor was not of major concern at either the national or international level. However, 33 countries have now joined IPEC. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), working with governmental partners and service groups, promotes universal access to quality and affordable primary education and the removal of children from work that takes advantage of them. In addition, international financial establishments such as the World Bank have begun to evaluate how their programs and actions may impact the situation of children. In the last several years, three large international conferences focusing on child labor brought together representatives of governments, workers, employers, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of industrialized and developing countries in Stockholm, Sweden (1996), Amsterdam, the Netherlands (1997), and Oslo, Norway (1997).

In the spring of 1998, over 1,400 NGOs around the world showed their concern for the troubles faced by child workers by supporting the Global March against Child Labor. This march traveled for six months across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The goals of the Global March were to raise awareness about child labor issues, urge governments to create and enforce laws protecting children and providing for education. The March also called for the immediate elimination of the worst forms of child labor, the promotion of awareness and action by employers and consumers, and ensuring the suitable treatment of child laborers.

In June 1999, representatives of governments and workers' and employers' organizations from 174 countries met in Geneva to discuss a new convention on the "Worst Forms of Child Labor." Convention 182 calls on countries to take measures to prohibit and secure the immediate elimination of the worst forms of child labor. It also requires governments to establish appropriate action plans to accomplish this. The Convention was unanimously adopted and as of early 2000 had been accepted by 7 countries.

Statements by World Leaders on Child Labor

Historically, many governments have denied that abusive child labor practices existed in their countries, and government leaders were reluctant to address the issue of child labor publicly. In recent years, many leaders have addressed the issue of child labor in public statements, either acknowledging the problem or announcing their intention to change it.

• In his 1999 State of the Union address, U.S. President Bill Clinton reaffirmed the United States' commitment to the cause of child labor by stating "we will lead the international community to conclude a treaty to ban abusive child labor everywhere in the world." At the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting held in Seattle in December 1999, President Clinton noted the need to take urgent action to end the worst forms of child labor. He then signed Convention 182, making the U.S. one of the first countries to accept it.

• In February 1998, Brazilian President Henrique Cardoso stated "the [Brazilian] federal government is willing to use all its resources to remove children from [exploitative/abusive] work" and pointed out that the elimination of child labor must be the effort of local leaders such as mayors, governors, unions, clergy, etc.

• In March 1998, former South African President Nelson Mandela expressed his concern about the "large number of children subjected to child labor in South Africa and worldwide," and stated that it will take concerted action to "rescue our children from child labor and prevent a new generation of children from becoming victims."

• Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, in an April 1998 speech, stated that "the problem of child labor occupies a prominent place in the priority agenda of the Government of Pakistan," and urged international organizations and human rights activists to continue their struggle for the rights of children.

• In a September 1998 statement addressing the impact of the Asian financial crisis on child labor, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung stated that "economic progress built with the thin, weak hands of children can never be the future of Asia" and added that "forcing children to discontinue their education and making them enter the dangerous labor market robs us of our future."

Further Considerations

Eliminating child labor would appear to be one of the few human rights standards on which the entire world community could agree. Indeed, child labor statistics and the stories behind them have inspired worldwide action, from the creation of new NGOs to the Global March against Child Labor. Consumer outrage has pressured multinational corporations such as Nike and the Gap to adopt codes of conduct (which are supposed to prohibit child labor in their factories abroad) and attach "child labor–free" labels to the products they sell.

But do these so-called changes make poor children and their families in developing countries better off, or is the situation more complicated? In some cases, the income from a child's labor may be the difference between starvation and mere "poverty" for a typical family in the developing world. In such extreme circumstances--when children work to help their families survive--an outright ban on their labor brought upon them by other countries may in some cases be more dangerous than the hazards they face at work, by causing a retaliation against them from their home government or employer. Business codes of conduct adopted by multinational corporations only affect a small percentage of children working in export industries and may have the adverse impact of forcing children into lower paying, and more dangerous, work in the streets. For example, a dangerous factory job may be a safer place than trying to sell drugs or steal cars in order to survive. The UN has stated that financial compensation for families of working children is an important starting point in the effort to fix the problems associated with child labor. International child welfare supporters are currently focusing on the need to educate child workers, provide financial support to parents to send their working children to school, and create local partnerships between employers and community groups to monitor working conditions.

The International Conference on Human Rights will concentrate on the abuse of child labor by addressing working conditions, intellectual development, and the "worst cases of child labor" as defined in Convention 182. Attention should also be paid to the larger questions of growth and inequality in the developing world. How does the wide availability of consumer goods in the more developed countries of the Northern Hemisphere impact the economic and social growth of developing countries in the Southern Hemisphere.

Global Environment

Environmental issues of all types are international, as natural resources make up a "global commons" that is shared by all nations and people of the world community. Air pollution caused by a nation affects other nations, as does acid rain, deforestation, and resource depletion. Economic development strategies adopted and pursued by different nations have significant impacts not only on a single nation's environment, but also on neighboring environments and the world ecosystem as a whole.

A significant amount of disagreement over how to best address environmental issues exists between the countries of the industrialized/developed world and the developing world. This difference of opinion centers on the issue of poverty. While poorer countries strive to pursue economic growth and eliminate poverty by utilizing the heavy industrial (and highly polluting) model of the developed world, the developed nations seek to promote alternative growth strategies for the developing world with fewer harmful consequences for the environment. This dispute has often turned into accusations of economic hegemony (on the part of the developed world, by the developing countries of the Southern Hemisphere) and environmental "double-standards" (on the part of the developing world, by the industrialized countries of the Northern Hemisphere).

This ongoing dispute is further complicated by the fact that nearly all countries claim international attempts to protect the environment violate their sovereignty. A general lack of agreement and leadership in the environmental arena gives non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth greater influence than they would normally have if countries were more engaged in addressing such issues.

Global Climate Change

Referred to in the past as "global warming" and "the Greenhouse Effect", global climate change is one of the most significant international environmental issues of the last decade, as well as the most disputed. Disagreement over the cause, how bad it really is, and consequences of global climate change occurs not only between individual nations and blocs of nations, but between different interest groups within nations. There is also disagreement between environmental NGO's and the international business community over the same issues.

Global Climate Change--What is it?

Global climate change refers to a change in the average temperature of the earth's climate due to a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a team of the world's foremost climate change scientists commissioned by the U.N, has confirmed that such a process is underway. However, there are many conflicting scientific opinions that exist on these issues. Significant climate change poses serious dangers worldwide, such as coastal flooding, frequent and intense heat waves, more extreme droughts, a rise in the number of severe storms, profound changes to biodiversity, and disruptions in crop production and growing seasons. These outcomes would especially impact the island nations of the world, as well as dry countries and countries with a significant proportion of their population and infrastructure (roads, buildings, and transportation systems) living in coastal floodplains.

Some level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is natural and beneficial, as they reduce the rate at which the planet's heat is lost by radiating out into space. But when pollution pushes the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere too high, too much heat is trapped, and the world gets hotter. The most important greenhouse pollutant is carbon dioxide, which is produced from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Deforestation also plays a role as trees (which soak up carbon dioxide in photosynthesis) disappear and those that are burned add additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Global concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased by about 30 percent during the last century, spurred initially by the increase in fossil fuel burning at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Since it takes decades to centuries for natural processes to remove excess amounts from the air, carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere.

Recent Climate Change Negotiations

In June, 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, also known as the Rio Earth Summit) brought together a record number of world leaders to address the world's most pressing environmental problems, among them global climate change. One significant development of the Rio Earth Summit was the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Convention's objective is to cut back on climate change caused by human activities. As a preliminary step it called upon the industrialized countries of the world to voluntarily return their emissions (production) of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2000.

In March/April 1995, at the First Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change (COP-1) in Berlin, Germany, 120 countries agreed to hold further talks on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This was determined after reviewing the progress made toward the goals of the Rio Earth Summit and concluding that the voluntary approach had been unsuccessful. This agreement to pursue further talks resulted in the Berlin Mandate, which specifically called upon the industrialized nations to set stronger, more specific reduction targets for themselves.

In December of 1997, the Third Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change (COP-3) was held in Kyoto, Japan. On December 11, 1997, negotiators reached a compromise treaty, with 38 industrialized countries agreeing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases to below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States agreed to 7 percent reductions, the European Union to 8 percent, and Japan to 6 percent, with the overall cut for all 38 countries around 5 percent.

Negotiators met again in November 1998 in Buenos Aires, Argentina at the Fourth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change (COP-4) to expand the details of the Kyoto Protocol. The final two-year "Buenos Aires Plan of Action" includes a firm deadline (the sixth Conference of the Parties, scheduled for November 2000) for countries to make sure that they are complying with the treaty's goals. Countries must also decide the rules governing emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism (a means of bringing in money for cleaner energy projects in developing countries). During the Buenos Aires conference, the United States officially signed the Kyoto protocol, becoming the 60th country to do so. The protocol will become international law when at least 55 countries have signed and then approved the agreement.

Further Considerations

Among the climate change issues that still need to be addressed is the international trading of emissions credits. The United States has said that it will be unable to meet its 7 percent reduction goal without the benefit of emissions trading, which would allow some countries to meet their reduction goals by trading credits with other countries that can easily meet theirs. (This basically means that the U.S. would have to work out a deal with a country that is going to emit fewer greenhouse gases than what they are allowed by the treaty). Other issues from the Kyoto Protocol that still need to be settled are: developing a means for enforcing reductions called for in the treaty; the role of forests and land use in absorbing emissions of carbon dioxide; and promoting incentives for investment in pollution-cutting technologies in developing countries, which are not legally bound by the treaty.

One innovative strategy that has been employed to promote forest and land conservation (and greenhouse gas reduction) is what is commonly known as a debt-for-nature swap. In this transaction, a conservation organization acquires some of a developing country's foreign debt, either by purchasing it at a discount or by receiving it as a donation. The organization then agrees to cancel the debt in return for the country's commitment of additional resources to conservation. To date, this type of transaction has eliminated nearly $200 million of debt in developing nations and has delivered a substantial amount of new resources to conservation in Latin America and Africa. Debt-for-nature swaps have been promoted and facilitated by Sweden, the Netherlands, and other countries.

The upcoming Global Environment Conference should follow up on the outstanding issues related to the Kyoto treaty, namely:

• How reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized countries can be enforced;

• The acceptability of emissions trading by countries bound by the Protocol;

• The role of forest preservation in reducing carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere; and

• Ways in which developing countries can be encouraged to cut back on their own greenhouse gas emissions, outside of the Kyoto agreement.

Country teams participating in the Global Environment Conference should keep in mind the delicate balance between economic growth and environmental protection. This balance is most of a concern in developing nations, and addressing environment/development conflicts during the negotiation cycle are very important.

CONFLICT/COOPERATION

The world has become increasingly interdependent; that is countries and people rely more than ever before on other areas of the world. Fewer trade and border restrictions reflect this. Global interdependence, in combination with the creation of global financial and telecommunications systems, has created a new breed of international criminals who extend their criminal networks and operations beyond the borders of one nation. Drug trafficking, illegal arms sales, and terrorism are seen as legitimate threats to the safety of a country, while the ability of international criminal groups to transfer money between countries allows them an easier way to get away from local crime prevention entities such as the police or national ones like the FBI. This inability to catch criminals only serves to strengthen this type of activity.

The Global Drug Problem

By the late 1990's there was an estimated 190 million drug users around the globe, with the revenues from illegal drugs making up an estimated $400 billion per year worldwide. This is the equivalent to approximately 8% of total international trade. This is larger than the international trade in iron and steel (2.8%) and motor vehicles (5.3%) and approximately the same size as the international trade in textiles (7.5%), and oil and gas (8.6%). The 100 tons of cocaine seized in the United States in 1995 alone on average, would have had a street value of approximately $10 billion, larger than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of more than half the countries of the world. In simple terms this means that one year of cocaine bust totaled more than what half the countries in the world might make in a year.

While the majority of illegal drug use takes place in industrialized nations, drug addiction crosses national, ethnic, religious, class and gender lines. The fact is that anyone can become addicted. Drug addiction is creating new problems for nations: increased crime and violence, unemployment, the deterioration of society, and the spread of drug-related diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis. The most profitable drug trafficking activities are typically controlled by cartels, often organized along ethnic lines to create cohesiveness (similarly to the way a gang unites around a color or neighborhood). Drug money is also used to pay private armies, and in some cases, to bribe politicians, judges, police and journalists.

Drug Trafficking--What is it?

Drug traffickers have come to resemble multinational corporations in their ability to reach around the globe and across national borders. Cartels usually have an extensive organization, a sophisticated system to transport drugs and money, and highly smooth operations. The nature of the drug trade determines that drugs produced in one country or region are often destined for other countries or regions where there is greater demand--and a more profitable market--exists. Drug money is moved electronically around the world in a matter of seconds. If one country begins to down hard on drug producers, the industry can move to another country where trading is less risky.

The most comprehensive international agreement pertaining to global drug trafficking is the UN's 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. As of November 1999, 153 countries agreed to participate in this agreement. The United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) was established in 1991 to coordinate drug control strategies internationally in order to better face improved transport and communications networks which have made it easier for traffickers to move and sell drugs across national borders.

Recent Developments in Drug Trafficking

The large majority of illegal drugs currently consumed in the world are either plant products, or plant products that have undergone some processing or chemical alteration. While there are no universally accepted figures on illegal drug production, trends show that worldwide production of all types of such drugs is expanding. While coca (used in the creation of cocaine) and cannabis (plant base of marijuana) production appear to be leveling off or falling after a dramatic rise in the 1980's, global opium production is currently on the rise. Most of the world's illegal opiates (products created from opium such as heroin) come from the "Golden Crescent" (Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan--click HERE for map), the "Golden Triangle" (Laos, Burma and Thailand--click HERE for map), Lebanon (click HERE for map), and Mexico (click HERE for map).

Coca production, by contrast, is concentrated largely in three South American countries (Bolivia, Colombia and Peru--click HERE for a map), which together account for more than 98% of the world's cocaine supply. Cannabis is produced in most parts of the world, but new areas such as the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union (Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan--click HERE for a map) are rapidly becoming major producers. Synthetic drug markets are also developing rapidly. The most prevalent synthetic drugs are stimulants such as methamphetamine and amphetamine ("speed", "crystal meth"), and hallucinogens such as LSD ("acid").

Drug trafficking is the crucial link in the chain between production and consumption, and is widely regarded as the most profitable stage of the process. The trade has become increasingly organized, particularly at the production, wholesale and middleman levels, especially in the case of cocaine and heroin. Cocaine trafficking begins in the Andean region and spreads northward, with North America and Europe as the principal final destinations. The trafficking route leads from the Andean countries through Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, although alternative routes through South America (Argentina, Brazil), Africa and Eastern Europe have also become popular. Fifty to seventy percent of total United States cocaine imports pass through Mexico. To locate these countries and trace these transit routes, WORLD, REGIONAL, AND COUNTRY MAPS can be found HERE.

Heroin distributed to North America largely originates in Southeast Asia, with trafficking through countries such as China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and, increasingly, African countries. The majority of heroin consumed in Europe, by contrast, originates in Southwest Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran) with smuggling routes to Europe mainly through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and the Balkans (Croatia, Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and other countries). The opening of the borders between east and west (caused by the fall of communism and the switch to free markets) in Europe has made it easy to find contacts and communication, which are now being utilized by drug traffickers to increase the number of available transit routes. To locate these countries and trace these transit routes, WORLD, REGIONAL, AND COUNTRY MAPS can be found HERE.

Further Considerations

Traditionally efforts to combat drug trafficking in the major markets--especially in the United States--have focused on reducing the supply of illicit drugs. While in the 1980's these supply control efforts focused largely on stopping the smuggling of drugs at national borders through law enforcement and border patrol, they have since evolved to focus on targets in other countries. The U.S. government has in recent years placed a direct emphasis on targeting crops and their growers, criminal networks, and drug-related corruption within governments in supplier countries. European nations have begun to focus more of their efforts domestically on treatment and education surrounding drug addiction. The recent $1.6 billion U.S. drug control assistance package to Columbia provides an example of recent U.S. policy on drug trafficking.

Aside from corruption, the U.S. has also targeted foreign governments it has deemed to be lacking in the political strength to make anti-drug efforts a priority. One outgrowth of this has been the annual Presidential Determination on Major Illicit Drug Producing and Drug Transit Countries. This list includes three categories: 1.) countries which are determined by the U.S. to have taken "adequate" steps toward full compliance with the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances; 2.) countries that have not taken "adequate" steps toward full compliance with the UN convention, but because of overriding security interests are exempted from penalty; and 3.) countries that do not meet the standards for certification and are subject to penalty; U.S. law calls for most foreign assistance (supplies) and development lending (money) to be stopped to nations in this category.

The Presidential Determination has been criticized within and outside the U.S. as being overly politicized in its selections, for its withholding of development assistance, and for the idea that it, along with much of U.S. drug policy, ignores other countries' sovereignty. Moreover, many governments in drug-producing nations have criticized the U.S. for distributing far more of its resources (time and money) toward involvement abroad than to curbing demand for drugs domestically (as European countries have done).

The International Conflict/Cooperation Conference will focus its efforts on how demand and supply for illegal drugs affect drug trafficking, and in promoting efforts toward combating both consumption as well as production of drugs. The Conference should take into account both technological advances (which make operations easier for drug traffickers) and poverty (the reliance of poor people and poor countries on drug income for survival) in crafting a workable drug trafficking control strategy.

WORLD HEALTH

Widespread poverty, overpopulation, and a lack of access to medicine and basic health networks have all contributed to the global spread of deadly diseases. By-products of an increasingly interdependent world such as increased traveling/mobility, expanding international trade in food and livestock, and social and environmental disruption have also contributed to the return of old diseases and the emergence of new ones.

Communicable and Infectious Diseases--What are they?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), infectious and communicable diseases are now the world's biggest killer of children and young adults. Most deaths from infectious diseases occur in developing countries, where they account for more than 13 million deaths a year - one in every two deaths. Further complicating this fact is that almost one in three children in the developing world are malnourished, and one in five children do not receive immunization by their first birthday. However, infectious diseases are not a problem only for developing countries. In recent years, tuberculosis and diphtheria have re-occurred in parts of Europe, and a 1996 polio outbreak in Albania, Greece and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia showed how easily a disease can be reintroduced to the world if immunization efforts are reduced.

Globally, most deaths from infectious diseases (nearly 90%) are caused by only a handful of diseases. Six deadly communicable diseases--pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS--account for half of all premature deaths, killing mostly children and young adults. In some countries, as many as one in five children die before reaching age five. Every day 3,000 people die from malaria, 75% of them under age five. Every year 1.5 million people die from tuberculosis and another eight million are newly infected.

Pneumonia

Pneumonia, the deadliest Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI), kills more children than any other infectious disease. Most of these deaths (99%) occur in developing countries. Pneumonia often affects children of low birth weight or whose immune systems are weakened by malnutrition or the influenza virus ("the flu"). There is very little information available on the number of influenza deaths in developing countries. However, in the United States alone, the disease kills 10,000 to 40,000 people in an average flu season.

HIV/AIDS

Over 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide; sub-Saharan Africa (the southern two-thirds of the African continent, south of the Sahara desert) is the most affected region. In some countries in southern Africa, up to one in four adults are now living with HIV/AIDS. Increasingly HIV/AIDS is becoming a problem during pregnancy and childbirth. In Zimbabwe, for example, 20%-50% of pregnant women in some areas are infected with HIV and risk infecting their children. In Botswana life expectancy at birth has fallen from 70 to almost 50 years.

Diarrhea

Diarrheal diseases--cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and rotavirus—claim almost two million lives a year among children under age five. Most deaths occur because of a rapid loss of fluids and undernourishment. Diarrheal diseases also account for approximately 1.5 billion illnesses a year in children under age 5. This class of disease particularly plagues poor countries which lack adequate sanitation and hygiene facilities and safe drinking water.

Tuberculosis (TB)

Tuberculosis, once under control, is now estimated to kill 1.5 million people a year. TB kills more adolescents and adults than any other single infection. Nearly two billion people are estimated to be latent carriers of the TB infection, creating potential for massive outbreak. Infection with HIV weakens the immune system and multiplies the risk of infection with TB. As a result, about one-third of all AIDS-related deaths today are caused by tuberculosis.

Malaria

Malaria kills over one million people a year worldwide, deaths from malaria occur primarily in young children. Most malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria accounts for one in five of all childhood deaths. Women are especially vulnerable during pregnancy, and are more likely to die from the disease, suffer miscarriages or give birth to premature, low-weight babies.

Measles

Measles is the most contagious disease in the world and is a major childhood killer in developing countries, accounting for about 900,000 deaths a year.

The huge increase in mass population movements--as a result of war, famine, and poverty--in the past decade have contributed greatly to the spread of infectious diseases. According to the UN, in 1996 alone as many as 50 million people (1% of the world's population) were forced to move from their homes. Mass migration not only increases the vulnerability of refugees to disease, it also spreads new diseases into new areas. Migration often relocates refugees to urban areas, where high population density, unsafe water, poor sanitation and widespread poverty provide the perfect breeding ground for disease outbreaks.

In the Middle Ages (500-1400 A.D.) deadly plagues were shipped from one continent to another - carried by flea-infested rats on board ships. Today, the rapid increase in air travel has meant that diseases can now be transported from one continent to another in a matter of hours. As the number of international airline passengers has grown to over 1.4 billion a year, deadly airborne diseases such as pneumonic plague, influenza and TB can easily spread in crowded airport lounges, on a jumbo jet or by passengers after their return home. Infectious diseases can also be carried across borders by their animal or insect hosts. Popular books such as Hotzone and movies such as "Outbreak" have brought attention to this very real problem to the public.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the main UN-affiliated organization active in the area of world health. The efforts include the monitoring and combating of communicable (transmittable between persons) and infectious diseases. The current WHO International Health Regulations (IHR) have been in force since 1971, replacing the International Sanitary Regulations, which were adopted by the World Health Assembly in 1951. They were first introduced to help monitor and control a handful of serious diseases with significant potential to spread between countries. The goals of the IHR are to: detect, reduce or eliminate sources from which infection spreads; improve sanitation in and around ports and airports; and prevent the spreading of disease- and disease carriers.

Recent Developments

The IHR require national governments to immediately notify the rest of the world if they have an outbreak of cholera, plague and yellow fever. However, many countries fail to report outbreaks of even the most deadly diseases because they fear devastating economic losses in trade and tourism. The IHR also do not cover several diseases of international importance such as the Ebola virus, an unusually swift and deadly killer with over 90% of its victims dead in as little as one week. The IHR are therefore currently being revised to make them more appropriate to control infectious diseases of international importance for the 21st century.

In 1987, the UN created a Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) based in Geneva, Switzerland. This program was created so that governments and health organizations could work together to prevent the rapid worldwide spread of HIV/AIDS. Recent efforts towards fighting HIV/AIDS by the UN and WHO have been focused oninfluencing national plans, laws, education, and labor policies in an effort to educate people against contracting the disease. This can involve providing encouragement to enable girls to finish secondary education (high school or beyond), boosting job and educational opportunities for women, and reaching out to groups such as prostitutes and IV drug users. In many cultures, however, HIV/AIDS is a greatly misunderstood and controversial affliction; as a result, few governments have attempted to reduce individual vulnerability to HIV/AIDS through the broad-based approach supported by the UN and WHO.

Further Considerations

In industrialized countries where deaths from communicable diseases have greatly decreased over the past century, the major concern is preventing diseases from crossing national borders and creating a new outbreak or re-emergence.   In developing countries, the primary concern is detecting communicable disease outbreaks early and preventing their growth and the potential impact on trade and tourism, as well as fighting poverty and malnutrition which only adds to the possibility of sickness.

One problem of concern for the entire world community is the dramatic increase in the spread of drug resistance over the past decade, and the ways in which resistance undermines current efforts to control infectious diseases. As diseases once thought to be under control become increasingly resistant to available drugs, the danger of outbreak increases. Drug resistance also requires those treating illnesses to switch from normally less expensive first-line drugs to second or third-line drugs which are more expensive. In some of the poorest countries, this means some diseases are too expensive to treat.

The World Health Conference should focus on drug resistance, and how to fund research and distribution of new drugs. Focus should also be given to increasing childhood immunization, the effects of mass migration, trade, and tourism on overall levels of health, and on outbreaks of infectious diseases. The Conference should also consider the need to include new diseases in the IHR and to increase their enforceability. Participants should remember that health conditions affecting communicable disease are driven by factors such as sanitation and water supply, environmental change, culture, education, and housing. Unless these issues are considered, it can be difficult to prevent or even control some infectious diseases.

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS

In the context of international economics, the issue of immigration is critical. Throughout history, economic wealth has been a key factor in the decision of people to migrate to new areas, and immigrants have played a key role in the development of national economies and industries, both in supplying labor and new ideas and innovations. As national economies start to adopt similar business policies, however, it becomes just as easy for capital (the money and machines used to produce goods) to move to new countries as it historically has been for people to move to new countries. As a result, one of the biggest reasons for people to move to a new country--to find new job opportunities lacking in their home country, as many immigrants to the U.S. did--can be affected if the jobs can move elsewhere just as easily. This concept is known as the transferability of economic and financial capital.

Immigration issues

The survival of the country has traditionally been the primary element of national interest in the world system. There are also minimum requirements of the national interest such as the integrity of a nation’s territory, society, and culture. Immigration opponents argue that immigration poses a threat to the security of nations such as the U.S. who have high numbers of immigrants. The complaint that many immigrants are uneducated, unskilled, and may have a criminal tendencies is used to strengthen this argument. Others view immigrants as a key contribution to the social, cultural, and economic life of their host country. For example, without the help of Chinese and Irish immigrants, the U.S. would not have been able to build the transcontinental railroad.

Generally speaking, there are three categories of migrants: (1) immigrants, who receive legal permanent resident status in their destination country; (2) refugees and asylees (most of whom later adjust to immigrant status); and (3) non-immigrant temporary aliens admitted to their destination country for specific purposes, such as to go to college or to work at a short-term job. Immigration continues to shape the face of nations; for example, the U.S. Census Bureau recently reported that between 1990 and 1999, the Asian and Pacific Island population in the United States grew by 43 percent (to 10.8 million), and the Hispanic population grew 39 percent, to 31.3 million. By comparison, the non-Hispanic white population rose seven percent to 224.6 million, and the Black population rose 14 percent to 35 million.

There have been two primary sources of opposition to immigration in countries with high immigrant populations, such as the U.S. and several nations of western Europe—cultural and economic. While perceived cultural destabilization has been the driving force of recent anti-immigrant feeling in countries such as Germany, in the U.S. such feeling—particularly since the 1980’s—has been driven by economic considerations.

During the recessions of the 1980’s and early 1990’s, worker fears over job security, unchanging wages, and inflation led many to criticize the influx of refugees as an economic threat, taking jobs from citizens and driving down wages. Although the economic prosperity of the late 1990’s has calmed some of these fears, concerns over job security and prospects for trades and unskilled laborers remains a key complaint against globalization heard in the U.S. and other industrialized nations. Another economically-driven criticism of immigration—again most common in the U.S.—has been the thought that immigrants drain public monies in their use of social services such as education and the health care system. This concern concluded in Proposition 187 in California, which sought to deny many existing social services—such as education—to illegal immigrants and their children. Other, more recent economic concerns over immigration shared throughout the world community fall generally in the category of "globalization issues" such as regulating labor practices, the growth of illegal economic activity such as drug trafficking, and international economic inequality.

Recent Developments in Immigration

Economic incentives/motivations for immigration are a key issue in North America, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border. In 1994, the U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) changed its strategy to prevent illegal migration over the Mexico-US border. Instead of trying to catch illegal migrants , the INS sought to prevent attempts at entry by stationing large numbers of agents visibly along the border and using lights, fences and other obstructions to funnel persons attempting unauthorized entry to places where they were likely to be caught. This strategy is commonly referred to as Operation Gatekeeper. Increased border enforcement has not slowed the entrance of newly arrived and often unauthorized migrants to take jobs in industrial and agricultural occupations (farm work). The percentage of workers on US crop farms who are estimated to be unauthorized, about 52 percent in 1997-98, is believed to be rising by two to four percent a year.

The driving force behind Operation Gatekeeper is the increased numbers of border crossing attempts from Mexico, attributed by both sides to the relative economic positions of the U.S. (wealthy) and Mexico (poor). Further complicating border issues is the rise of border companies, or "maquiladoras." Maquiladoras is a generic term for manufacturing plants which have relocated to towns along the U.S.-Mexico border in order to take advantage of the economic benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The connection between immigration and economics will continue to dominate U.S.-Mexican affairs, as the number of Mexican-born persons residing in the U.S. are projected to increase from 8 million in 2000 to 12 million by 2010.

In Europe, the European Union and many national governments and non-governmental organizations are beginning to debate the need for a Europe-wide immigration policy for the 21st century. As the population throughout much of Europe gets older , their typically large social programs for the poor and elderly (similar, but larger than, programs like Medicare and Social Security in the U.S.) are threatened by a declining number of working-age people who pay taxes to support these programs.  Many European leaders view working immigrants (a younger population) as the key to the financial possibility of the social welfare state. Some estimates have concluded that this approach would require the EU to admit up to 1.4 million immigrants a year, which would have major social and cultural ramifications in countries not always tolerant of new influences on the dominant culture. However, the European Commission President has stated that Europe needs legal immigrants to maintain current standards of living, and that EU governments must increase their cooperation to reduce illegal immigration. Currently an estimated 3.5 million illegal migrants enter the EU each year. As many of these immigrants reside in Germany as refugees from conflict in the Balkans, it will be important to monitor cultural acceptance of this economic strategy.

In Asia, a major immigration issue driven by economics is the large number of persons being smuggled illegally by Chinese and other Asian smugglers into North America and Western Europe. This is a particular concern requiring a high degree of international cooperation, given the degree of organization involved in such large movements of people. The economic elements of this problem are two-fold: first, many of the smuggling rings are parts of multi-dimensional criminal organizations turning millions of dollars in profit from illegal trafficking in people; secondly, much of the motivation to emigrate on the part of those smuggled is to seek economic opportunity abroad. While many seek entrance into the U.S. and Canada (at prices estimated at up to $50,000 to $60,000 per person), crackdowns by those nations on smugglers are thought to have contributed to a shift of Chinese illegal migration to Europe through the turbulent Balkan states. The Chinese government to date has been relatively silent on the issue of human smuggling, (often by stuffing people in wooden boxes in the cargo holds of ships).

A great concern of many developing nations is the so-called "Brain Drain" of intellectual and business elites to the industrialized world in search of higher standards of living. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. and European states have adopted more ethnically and racially liberalized immigration policies which accept immigrants from a wider range of countries. Since that time, the number of professional and technical workers in nations such as India, Pakistan, and China that have emigrated to the countries of North America and Western Europe has skyrocketed, boosting economic life in their new home countries. While much of the debate over immigration in the industrialized world has focused on the threat to domestic economic security from immigration of unskilled laborers from the developing world, in the nations of the developing world the dominant issue is the loss of skilled workers and intellectuals which threatens the prospects of economic and social development at home.

Further Considerations

Economic incentives/motivations will continue to play a key role both in migration decisions and in the policies of countries with a high number of immigrants. The International Economics Conference should focus on the specific issues of U.S.-Mexico border relations, the development of a coherent EU immigration strategy, smuggling of human cargo, and the movement of highly trained and skilled workers from the developing world to the industrialized nations. Discussion of each of these issues should take into account the characteristics of the global economic system and the impacts they play in immigration.