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BERMUN 2009 - Global Ethics: Rules for Global Welfare

Dear MUN Directors,
We cordially invite you to attend the eighteenth annual Berlin Model United Nations Conference to be held at the John F. Kennedy School.

This year's theme

Global Ethics: Rules for Global Welfare

reflects concerns that have been recently voiced around the world, especially among the younger generation that moral behaviour is of little relevance to politics or international affairs. Jean-Marc Coicaud and Daniel Warner in their study Ethics and International Affairs: Extent and Limits have written that "ethics is concerned with being as close as possible to realizing the idea, the positive idea, of what it is to be a human being. It is about approaching as closely as possible a sense of what is essentially human in our nature. In thinking and acting in an ethical manner, the individual makes himself a witness to what positively distinguishes humans: the quest for dignity." As humans we do not live in isolation but are political and social beings who share the same basic drives. While dependent on one another we are at the same time in a state of competition with one another. Possessing or demonstrating an ethical attitude presumes that others have rights, including the right to live in and with dignity. In effect practicing ethical behaviour means reciprocally respecting the rights of all human beings. When applied to international affairs, global ethics means ensuring that all can live with dignity. In practice this will result in the fair and equitable distribution of power and responsibilities in the areas such as human rights, humanitarian intervention, migration, international economic justice, and the environment. Read more ...