There are ten regular conferences -- two conferences for each of five issues areas---and one debriefing conference. At the first conference for an issue area, the students will work to clarify their ideas. Also, students will be given the "task" of drafting a plan of action for solving the problem at hand following the first conference session. Conference agendas are posted on the CPIN web-site.

The following nations will be simulated:

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.

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. Click here and choose Research Library on the left-hand side of the page. There are a number of resources available through the CPIN website including country profiles, web links, and other on-line resources.

This simulation exercise can be thought of as a set of interlocking subgames. Each subgame focuses on a particular issue that is outlined in this scenario. The exercise is intended to focus on a few primary issues in the world and how these issues are related; it is not intended to cover all international issues that exist today. The main subgames are:

Although the issue areas are presented as distinct, remember that the issues are intricately related. For example, global population issues affect development and the global environment. It may be less clear that discussions of development must take environmental, health and human rights considerations into account.

There will be two, one-hour conferences scheduled for each of the issue areas to be negotiated in this simulation. Simcon will chair these conferences. These conferences will be held at the dates and times listed on the Simulation Conference Schedule. All teams will participate in four of the five conferences.  Countries desiring to participate in all five issue-area conferences may petition Simcon to be added.

It is common for teams to begin the simulation in a passive mode with plans to respond after other country-teams take the lead. This creates an unrealistic foreign policy atmosphere and ensures a slow start to the exercise. Students are urged to send initial policy statements on every issue in which their country is involved on the first day of the simulation. In addition, students are urged 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.

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.

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.

It has become commonplace for analysts, scholars and commentators to say that the events of September 11, 2001changed the world. At the simplest level, the international community must decide how it will respond to terrorism [analysis], which, as the events have demonstrated, seems to be a more serious threat than previously considered. Although the threat has always been there, the world has been fiercely alerted to the urgent challenge of terrorism and the need to contain and stop it.

More broadly, 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 have become 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.

However, following the 9-11 events, the need for greater cooperation among the international community has been clearly revealed as the preeminent need for combating terrorism around the globe. Yet, despite much support for the U.S.-led "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan, there still remains disagreement and uncertainty about how best to combat terrorism.

In addition to these terrorist situations, several new and potential forms of terrorism are emerging. The current concern with Anthrax highlights the relative ease with which chemical and biological agents can be delivered against a population. Also, 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 appear to have clear purposes. It appears that the "statement" or the act itself is the most important reason for carrying out an attack. Terrorism has also become more global in scope, with attacks occurring beyond previously defined "dangerous" areas, for example, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community building in Buenos Aires, the embassy bombings in Africa, the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the intended terrorist actions by individuals who have been discovered in airports, most recently in France.

It is also difficult to identify all the possible groups involved in particular situations. 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.) 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 as well as the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has a personal fortune estimated to be as high as $300 million.

In addition to 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.

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 have 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-carotene 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 laud GMOs is because seeds and plants are created that resist insects, thus forgoing the need to use insecticides that pollute groundwater.

Despite these possibilities, one should not automatically conclude that this technology will be put to good use.  These companies also hold patents that are far less philanthropic in their intent.  In their ability to alter gene codes, GMO producers have created seeds called "terminator seeds" that will not reproduce.  Once the seeds have produced their crops, farmers cannot use the seeds produced by those crops for the next season.  Instead, they must buy new seeds.  This presents problems for poor farmers in LDCs that rely on gathering and using seeds from one year to the next.  Furthermore, although insect-resistant plants might at first appear to be an improvement, they can cause serious repercussions with regards to the balance of the ecosystem.  For example, a breed of monarch caterpillars survives 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 ultimately, the monarch butterflies.  Indeed the reduction of monarch butterflies, in turn, negatively affects other species.

Secondly, not only do 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. Consequently, GMO producers maintain ultimate control as to when (and whether) plants will 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 a difficult position 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 from citizen groups such as GeneWatch UK and ActionAid to restrain biotechnologists from tampering with nature.  One French farmer, who has since 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.  

The issue of GMOs also has many other implications for the international community, particularly in the area of international trade. This can be best illustrated in the recent dispute between the United States and the European Union. The EU’s insistence on maintaining protectionist policies on GMOs angered the United States who believed that such protectionism was in direct violation of the rules and regulations maintained by the World Trade Organization and threatened to take the EU to court. It is evident that such issues will continue to emerge as long as there remain differences of opinion over whether GMOs are truly beneficial or detrimental to the world.

GMOs also raise many ethical questions for the international community as many doubt the argument that some GMO producers make, claiming that GMOs will solve the problem of the "food gap" between countries, particularly between the north and the south. Many wonder as to whether starvation, particularly among southern countries, is truly a result of food scarcity or an unequal distribution of the available food. If the latter is true, the question remains as to whether, then, GMOs are the best means to rectify the problem or whether there are more sustainable and appropriate ways of addressing the issue.

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

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, be compensated financially for their work. Those who produce original works argue that if an original work is 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 they continue to try to further their own development, adhering to these treaties that were established by EDCs 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 IPRs. 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 of LDCs and 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 of 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 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 will 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.

In this day and age when capitalism dominates commercial interaction, 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. Also in many places, unsuspecting people are victimized for their organs. Indeed the effects of organ trafficking [analysis] have proven to be detrimental to health and abusive of human rights throughout the world.

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.

In Canada, it is reported that 30-50 citizens who are desperate for transplants go to China, India, and the Philippines for transplants annually.  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 surgeries and even have the surgery scars, indicating that they have had transplants, they return home only to find out they have been cheated.

In Japan, it goes against cultural practices to donate organ, but they are allowed 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.  Therefore, 1997 the Japanese Diet, in response to this problem, 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.  In Israel, there have been reports of Israelis traveling to neighboring countries, particularly Egypt, to buy kidneys to transplant from poor immigrant workers. 

One of 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 the issue of the transplantation of human organs and tissue, in order to bring greater attention to the issue of organ trafficking and robbery that affects both Europeans and those donors from abroad.

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; these are referred to as "kidney marriages."

Indeed the donors might only be harming themselves if the organ removal is not done under sanitary conditions or, as in many cases, not living long enough to receive their payments. Similarly, the recipient might be unknowingly inviting disease into himself/herself as the health conditions in many of these countries are very poor and unsanitary, thereby 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 will further explore the plethora of issues involving organ trafficking.

Dolly the sheep, the first cloned adult mammal, was just the beginning of the possibilities that lie ahead.  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.  Yet, is this another example of "dangerous science" like the development of the atom bomb?  Robert Oppenheimer, the lead physicist on The Manhattan Project, realized too late that he was too caught up in the scientific challenge and pursuit of knowledge to consider the moral and ethical ramifications of producing a weapon of 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 its implications for the world population and its effects on natural resources.  Furthermore, the ability to choose the biological sex of a child may further complicate gender issues in some countries where males are preferred over females.

Scientists, however, 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. These were the central arguments made by stem cell research advocates, including celebrities like Christopher Reeves, against the Bush Administration’s handling of the stem cell research issue early in 2001. Additionally, scientists who want to work on biotechnological development are likely to move to countries that facilitate the research, creating economic countries. This means that countries like the United States, Canada, and Japan would suffer a 'brain drain' of biotechnologists relocating to countries that encourage their work.

Until just recently, the international community had not pushed the issue.  Now, on the heels of much publicity surrounding an Italian doctor's intentions to clone the first human being, France and Germany have asked the UN to consider an international ban on human cloning.  It remains to be seen what influences will prevail over the member-states’ decision-making regarding human cloning.

Regardless of international legislation on human cloning, it is likely that some human being somewhere could be cloned.  One US business, the DNA Copyright Institute, is trying to encourage celebrities to copyright their DNA.  This would give them insurance, so to speak, against any duplication of their DNA just like any other material that is copyrighted.  They argue that, in the very near future, it is going to be fairly easy and relatively inexpensive to clone a human.

The Human Rights Conferences will focus on international efforts to address the issue of human cloning, including the rights, responsibilities, and limits of reproducing human beings.