Position Papers- Background guide on your country for a particular issue. Uses historical precedence, current events, and political climate within the specific country
TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE A POSITION PAPER
- Avoid use of “flowery” language. Try to state what you want to say as succinctly and clearly as possible. Diplomats can be round-about and vague, but position papers should not be.
- Writing in the present tense is better than past perfect. Ex: “Finland supports the UN’s efforts to ____” NOT “Finland has supported the UN ____” (the exception is when you are actually referring to specific events in the past. “Finland has supported historical peacekeeping efforts by contributing over 2,000 troops throughout the Cold War”).
- Avoid too much use of first person pronouns (I, We). Refer to your position by country name. “Germany believes…”, “Germany supports…”
- Avoid superlatives: greatest, best, most, very, extremely. These tend to sound like exaggerations.
- Frequently used terms: international community, global community, member states, mechanisms, guidelines, implementation, conventions, treaties, resolutions, conferences, multilateral, bilateral, national.
- Some commonly used verbs: affirms, endeavors, recognizes, allocates, acknowledges, encourages, believes, hopes, recommends, urges, considers, addresses, emphasizes, advocate
KEY QUESTIONS AND STRUCTURE:
- State why the problem is important. Who should care about it? Why is it on the UN’s agenda?
- What work has been done already to address this issue? What UN agencies deal with it? You can frame these in terms of an assessment - the agencies are “effective”, “successful”, “overburdened” etc. What conventions, conferences, meetings, etc have been held? What documents have come out of these meetings? Resolutions, treaties, conventions? Frame these in terms of our countries support (or rejection) of these efforts.
- Link your country to the work that has been done. Have they contributed funds? Sponsored/attended conferences? Signed treaties? Have they taken notable steps domestically to address this issue?
- Propose some specific steps to resolve the problem. These may not be directly linked to your country’s position, but should not be contradictory to your interests. Focus can be on multilateral steps, or on regional organizations, or on pursuing domestic/national legislation that will address the problem.