special political and decolonization committee (specpol)

The Special Political and Decolonization Committee (SPECPOL), or the Fourth Committee, as it is also known, was created in 1993 in accordance with the General Assembly Resolution 47/233, with the main objective of addressing significant political matters that the First Committee (DISEC) was not able to handle, such as self-determination, decolonization and other international security concerns. Later, SPECPOL was given other topics to address and a broader overall scope due to its success in addressing the Palestine Question, among others.

Currently, the Fourth Committee can be viewed as the United Nations Security Council's (UNSC) entrance door, since the questions discussed at the Council are often assessed earlier by SPECPOL - not only because of the broader approach it has in terms of international security, but also because it allows all United Nations (UN) member States to be heard before the question reaches other UN organs. Therefore, although they are not binding, the committee's resolutions are very appealing, since they reflect the opinion of a majority of countries regarding substantive matters.

This year, UFGSMUN's SPECPOL proposes two very intriguing topics to be discussed. Both are related to the influence of non-State actors in the International System and their implications to it. The first one invites delegates to think about the threats posed by cyber attacks not only to governments but also to the civil society. The second topic discusses the legitimacy of the use of Private Military Companies both at the national and international levels.

Topic Area A: Cyberterrorism and the Law of Cyber-Space

From the 1940s Tommy Flowers and Max Newman's Colossus1 to our modern personal computers, the power of computing has increased exponentially in the last decades. The Internet too has evolved from its early beginning as ARPANet2 to become more pervasive in all aspects of human life.3 Between 2000 and 2008, the number of Internet users has grown more than 290 percent, which represents more than one billion people connected (INTERNET WORLD..., 2008). In this context, the emergence of the so-called Information Society4 appears as one of the main consequences of the Internet's expansion. An entirely new world has been created - the World of Cyber-Space - and the global information infrastructure has become a vital institution to every country in the world. As digital networks became widespread, different practices were developed in order to control data flows and information itself.

At the same time, this global infrastructure seems to be a potential target for those organizations and individuals who fight against the established order. Once every economic resource and capability is connected under data rooms and national networks, one can theoretically break into these systems and have full access to its functions. Massive attacks to thousands of computers happen daily, causing a wide array of losses. On April 27, 2007 a series of Estonian organizations websites, including the Estonian parliament's, banks', ministries' and newspapers', went down, on a "brute force, crude attack" (WATERMAN, 2007) that raised fears regarding its possible economic implications. Most of the attacks were distributed denial of service (DDoS) type attacks utilizing global networks, or botnets, of compromised computers located in different parts of the world. On January 28, 2008, a student was found guilty of taking part in it (LEYDEN, 2008), but it is still impossible to find out the real responsible for the attack that served as a wake-up call to the potential damage that might occur from this type of action.

The September 11 attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon also showed how far terrorist organizations can benefit from the use of Information Technology, even indirectly, promoting large-scale consequences over society. In addition to physical damage, the communication losses caused by the aggression were extensive: both telephone lines and wireless services near the crashing sites broke down, causing panic in the population who did not know what the extension of the problem was.

The term cyberterrorism was created by Barry Collin5 in the 1980s to define the convergence of cyberspace and terrorism. By that time it was not clear how important the Internet and even personal computers would become in daily life. In this sense, concerns regarding the Internet's vulnerability and the possibility of using it as a warfare instrument have increased only over the past years. By now, however, several countries are already aware of this menace, implementing their own cyberspace legislation in order to avoid its possible threats. Despite national efforts, at the same time that the Internet is a worldwide phenomenon, it lacks an international legal framework that comprises definitions of its practices and rights of its users.

As the Internet continues to attract thousands of users each day, the number of cyber crimes tends only to increase in the following years. While many international organizations, such as the Council of Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), discuss the matter within their scope, the first attempt to create a legal framework for the cyberspace was made by Ahmad Kamal, senior fellow at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in 2005. In this sense, delegates at SPECPOL are invited to further discuss the matter, thinking about what the international community can do in order to secure global infrastructure against cyberterrorist practices, and further discuss the implementation of a cyberlaw convention which establishes legal frameworks for governments, private sectors actors and civil society.

Topic B: The Use of Private Military Companies and the Privatization of War

The use of Private Military Companies (PMCs) has grown in the post-Cold War era. Today, these companies provide a wide array of security functions, performing services closely related to the conduct of war, which are traditionally a responsibility of regular uniformed military personnel. The most common services offered by PMCs include logistical support, military advice and training, transportation, policing, intelligence, technical expertise and other paramilitary operations. Many governments, international organizations, NGOs, irregular armies and private companies that operate in the world's hot spots have purchased these services, including the United Nations. The use of private companies to assist military operations is, however, not new: soldiers of fortune have always played a significant role in warfare since ancient times.

Although little is publicly known about PMCs' activities, occasional scandals have captured headlines. In May 2006, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's police arrested 32 alleged mercenaries accused of plotting to overthrow the government. Most of the suspects worked for the South African company Omega Security Solutions. In September 2007, the American security firm Blackwater USA was involved in the deaths of eight civilians in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade (PARTLOW; PINCUS, 2007). It is reported that between 2005 and 2007 Blackwater security staff was involved in 195 shooting incidents, having fired first in 163 of those cases (BLACKWATER..., 2007). Despite these scandals, PMCs have tried to polish their images through websites, interviews and appearances in conferences, in order to operate more transparently as a legitimate business. In this sense, even an international organization was created to enhance the standards of the PMC industry.6

The involvement of these companies in conflict zones is a controversial issue also between specialists. Some argue that PMCs offer a number of operational advantages over regular military forces, such as acting as a counterweight to the local military in States with weak political institutions. Whether or not they present real advantages, PMCs are motivated by profit rather than duty, have less commitment than regular military personnel and their employees do not follow a military chain of command. In this sense, the lack of international regulation on the matter might encourage these companies to cross some accepted legal boundaries as they compete for several-million-dollar contracts every year. It is reported that the United States' contracts with PMCs have increased by 50 percent annually between 2004 and 2006 (BUZENBERG, 2007). Furthermore, it might be difficult to determine if PMCs' actions have or have not trespassed legality, considering not only the several sorts of services they provide, but also their different nationalities.

Another major challenge to the international community seems to be the definition of the scope of action of the PMCs. To better understand this phenomenon one must first distinguish mercenaries from PMCs. It is extremely difficult to agree on a definition of mercenary activities, because what appears to some as being so might be perceived by others as the action of freedom fighters. The first attempt to do so dates back to the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, which define a mercenary as the person "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain" (UNITED NATIONS, 1977). A similar approach was adopted by the United Nations on its 1989 International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries (UNITED NATIONS, 1989). These descriptions were, however, criticized by a large number of speakers, to whom PMC activities could not be linked to mercenary activities. Thus, currently there is also no definition of PMCs accepted by the international community. Delegates at SPECPOL 2008 are invited to discuss the legitimacy and legality of PMCs, bearing in mind the need for regulations concerning the topic and all the relevant issues related to it.

Further information available at: http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Stu/yuge/tf.htm. Last accessed: 10 March 2008.
ARPANet was developed as a large wide-area network created by the United States Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) to serve as a test bed for new networking technologies, linking many universities and research centers.
Further information regarding ARPANet available at: http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/~acc/docs/arpa.html. Las accessed: 10 March 2008.
Further information regarding the information society might be found in TOURAINE (1988).
Barry C. Collin is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security and Intelligence in California and has published a seminal paper on cyberterrorism called "The Future of Cyberterrorism".
For further information, visit the International Peace Operations Association Website. Available at: http://ipoaonline.org/php/index.php. Last accessed: 12 February 2008.

References:

BLACKWATER Boss Grilled Over Iraq. BBC News Website, 2007. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7024370.stm. Last accessed: 12 February 2008.
BUZENBERG, Bill. Baghdad Bonanza: The Top 100 Private Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Global Policy Forum Website, 2007. Available at: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/contract/2007/1120tophundred.htm. Last accessed: 10 March 2008.
INTERNET WORLD STATS WEBSITE, 2008. Available at: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. Last accessed: 11 March 2008. LEYDEN, John. Estonia Fines Man for DDoS Attacks. The Register Website, 2008. Available at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/estonian_ddos_fine/. Last accessed: 11 March 2008.
PARTLOW, Joshua; PINCUS, Walter. Iraq Bans Security Contractor: Blackwater Faulted In Baghdad Killings. The Washington Post Website, 2007. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/17/AR2007091700238.html. Last accessed: 12 February 2008.
UNITED NATIONS. International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries (A/RES/44/34), 1989. Available at: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/44/a44r034.htm. Last accessed: 12 February 2008.
UNITED NATIONS. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (protocol 1), 1977. Available at: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/93.htm. Last accessed: 13 February 2008.
WATERMAN, Shaun. Analysis: Who Cyber Smacked Estonia? United Press International Website, 2007. Available at: http://www.upi.com/Security_Terrorism/Analysis/2007/06/11/analysis_who_cyber_smacked_estonia/2683/print_view/. Last accessed: 11 March 2008.