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Understanding the United Nations includes understanding the administrative and procedural systems that it uses. Debating with rules of procedure that are as realistic as possible allows students to more accurately experience both the advantages and difficulties that delegates face when trying to reach an agreement.

How It Works

Participants are assigned a UN Member State, and they simulate what it would be like to be the delegate from that Member State. The participants will have to become knowledgeable on background information about their country and its position on the issue being negotiated in order to represent the views of their assigned Member State — they do not represent their own views. You may not always agree with the policy positions of your assigned Member State, as may be the case for professional delegates working at the United Nations.

Rules of Procedure - Discussion Phase

Chair

The presiding officer who leads and moderates a committee session

Adjournments

Meetings - A meeting can be adjourned upon the request of a Member State or by the Chair. An adjournment calls a meeting to a close. Any continued consideration of an item will take place at another meeting usually on another day.

Debate - Adjournments of debate end parts or all of the consideration of the agenda item concerned. This can mean ending the debate, blocking action on a specific draft resolution/decision or ending the consideration of the item as a whole (i.e., closing the item for the remainder of the session).

Seeking the Floor

No one (other than the Chair) may intervene in the debate (i.e., speak so as to be heard by the conference) without having been given the floor by the Chair

The first rule also means that delegates have to exert themselves to be given the floor. A delegate can seek the floor (i.e., ask for permission to speak) in two ways, namely by:

Asking the Chair or the Secretary (who often helps the Chair to keep track of such requests) to add their name to the list of speakers. They can do this by approaching the Chair or the Secretary directly while the conference is not in session, or by passing a message to them.
Signalling from the floor (i.e., from their seat, while the conference is in session) that they want to speak. The widely used convention is that the delegate raises their nameplate or sticks it vertically in its holder, lowering it when they believe their request has been noted or, at the latest, once they have spoken.

Rules of Procedure - Resolution Phase

Voting on Amendments

Amendments to a tabled draft resolution/decision are either formally submitted and issued as L-documents by the day before the scheduled action, or proposed orally from the floor, if no Member State objects. If there are several amendments proposed, the PGA/Chair decides on the sequence of consideration. If amendments are adopted, the draft resolution will be considered as “draft resolution L.XX as amended.”

Voting on Paragraphs

A Member State can request a separate vote on parts of a draft resolution before the adoption of the whole text. This can pertain to parts of a paragraph, an entire paragraph or several paragraphs.

Unmoderated vs Moderated Caucus

Unmoderated

Unmoderated Caucuses are informal discussions without individual speaking time limits where you can meet with other delegates who may have ideas that align with yours and discuss possible solutions to the issues. As the conference progresses, you can use this time to write working papers and draft resolutions.

Moderated

Moderated Caucuses are timed, formal sessions of debate that focus on solving a small piece of the larger issue.

How to Propose a Caucus

A delegate will raises their placard and says "Motion for a [number] minute [moderated/unmoderated] caucus, with a [time] speaking time, on the topic _________"

Length of Caucus: How long the discussion will go for. If the time is not enough, you can propose a "Motion to extend the current moderated caucus by x mins".
Speaking Time: How much time each delegate has to speak. The length of the mod should be divisible by the speaking time. A 10 min mod with 45 sec speaking time would not divide evenly, but a 5 min mod with 1 min speaking time would give exactly 5 speakers.
Caucus Topic: Choose whichever topic you feel is most important for the committee to discuss at the moment. Make sure that the topic is not too broad or too narrow.

Some other things to consider about moderated caucuses:

If you motioned for the moderated caucus which passed, you get the choice of either speaking first or last in the caucus.
If you would like to make a speech, simply raise your placard when the Chair asks for which delegates are wishing to speak.
Say the speaking time is 1 minute per speaker and you finish your speech before your time has elapsed. At the end of your speech, you can say that you "Yield my remaining time to the Chair."