Crisis committees in Model UN: directives, crisis notes and the backroom

What happens in the room, what happens behind it, and the four kinds of paper you send.

The front room is the committee you sit in. At many conferences it debates fast, often in one long moderated caucus, and acts through directives. The backroom is the crisis staff, out of sight. They read everything you send, decide how the world reacts and announce the result as a crisis update, which can arrive at any moment. Story time usually runs faster than real time, so one session can cover weeks.

Conferences name these papers differently: some call every private action a directive, others call crisis notes personal directives or portfolio requests. Some high school conferences run crisis as a Security Council debating an emergency by resolution, with no private notes at all, so read your conference's crisis rules before the first session.

Short, exact and about one thing: a directive is an order, not a resolution.

A directive is an order the committee gives as a body. Like a draft resolution, it carries sponsors and signatories, but it has no preambulatory clauses, and it usually passes with a simple majority.

• One issue per directive. A directive that sends troops and raises a tax loses the votes of everyone who opposes either half.
• Exact details. Say who acts, how much, where, by when and who pays.
• Build on what came before. Refer to earlier directives by number, so the backroom sees a plan.
• Every word counts. Vague text lets the backroom choose the outcome, and it will choose what makes the best story: send “the navy” without a destination, and it may sail somewhere you did not mean.

The scenario below is invented: a cyclone has cut the road north on the island of Marenland, and the hospitals there are running out of generator fuel.

Each clause names who acts and what they do, and together they say how much, where, by when and who pays, so the backroom has nothing to guess. The first clause builds on an earlier directive, and the last sets up the next step: the report gives the cabinet a reason to act again.

The two tracks work best together. The Minister of Energy who sponsors Directive 1.3 saves the hospitals in public; in a crisis note, the same minister can keep part of the reserve in a depot only the ministry controls. By the third session the cabinet depends on that fuel, and the minister's next directive has the votes it needs. A directive that puts your own ministry in charge of a task force does the same in the open.

One goal per note, every detail the backroom needs, in your conference's format.

A crisis note is where your character chases their own goals, using the powers and contacts of their seat. The backroom reads it, plays whoever you wrote to and answers.

• Follow your conference's format. Many expect a letter in character to a person in the story, such as your deputy or a banker; others want a plain note to “Crisis”. Either way, the backroom should understand what you want in 30 seconds.
• One goal per note, with its steps. A note that only asks for something tiny is easy to miss in a pile of hundreds: give the goal, the steps and what happens if a step fails.
• Answer who, what, where, when, why and how. A note the backroom must guess at gets a vague answer or none.
• Say how you keep it quiet if it must stay secret, and what the person gets for helping.
• Number your notes and refer back to earlier ones and their replies: “Following my note 4 and Friday's front page, I need ...”.

The weak note names nobody who can act, asks for nothing specific and gives the backroom nothing to write. The strong one is a letter in character; at a conference that wants plain notes to “Crisis”, the same details still make it work.

Your office sets what you can do alone; research it, and ask the dais when unsure.

Your portfolio powers are what your position lets you do without asking the room: a finance minister moves money, an interior minister commands the police, a general commands troops. The backroom has the final say on what your seat can do, and many background guides list each character's powers.

Research the office as well as the person: biographies, memoirs, the law that sets out what the office can do and what holders of that office did in real crises. In a real-world crisis, the backroom uses the same history to judge whether your note is believable. Note your personal resources too, such as money, family and the people who owe you favours, which are separate from your official powers. The research guide lists where to look.

If your background guide lists no powers, ask the dais before the conference, and say in your position paper what you assume your office can do. During the session, when you are not sure a power is yours, send the dais a note and ask before you build a plan on it.

In a Security Council crisis

Here the Security Council's powers belong to the committee, not to your seat, and it usually acts by resolution rather than directive. Under Chapter VI of the UN Charter it starts with peaceful settlement, calling on the parties to negotiate. Under Chapter VII, it can decide that a threat to the peace exists (Article 39), order measures without armed force, such as sanctions (Article 41), and, if it considers those would be inadequate or have proved inadequate, take action by air, sea or land forces (Article 42).

A resolution passes when at least nine of the fifteen members vote yes and none of the five permanent members, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, votes no. A no from a permanent member is the veto. In many Security Council crises you also send notes as your own government, moving ships or recalling an ambassador, and when a veto blocks the Council, that track often decides the committee.

It reads everything, answers in character and builds many updates from what you sent.

The crisis staff read every directive and note and decide what happens next. A reply to your note can grant it, grant part of it or refuse it, and some notes get no reply until an update shows the result.

A refusal tells you something: the move was too big for this point in the story, outside your powers, or missing details the backroom needed. Make a smaller move, add the detail, or ask what your character would need first. If the same plan keeps coming back refused, it does not fit the story: change the plan, not the wording.

Many updates come from what delegates sent, so read each one for its cause. An update about a leaked document may be the backroom's answer to someone's note, and the delegate who figures out whose note it was knows where the next fight in the room will be.

Gather resources early, test them in the middle and make your big move before the final session.

Many crisis committees build like a story in three acts, and your notes should follow the same shape.

1. 1Early sessions: gather what you will need later, such as money, people, information and allies in the room, with small notes the backroom can easily grant.
2. 2The middle: test your plan on a scale the backroom can accept, such as one deal or one arrest, and learn how it responds.
3. 3The second-to-last session: make the big move your earlier notes made possible. Many backrooms write the final session themselves, and awards are often decided during or just after it, so a move sent in the last half hour may never get a reply.

A delegate who stages a coup in the first hour has nothing to build on and is usually refused. One who has spent two days placing allies and money can ask for a great deal late in the conference, and the backroom has good reason to say yes.

Two or more rooms play opposing sides of one story, and news between them arrives late.

In a joint crisis committee, two or more committees play opposing sides of the same scenario in separate rooms, such as two governments close to war. The crisis staff of all the rooms run one story together, and what the other room does reaches you through crisis updates, often late or incomplete.

Never assume you know what the other side has done. Plan for more than one move they might make, use notes to gather information about the other room, and keep your plans to yourself: a character in your own room may have friends on the other side.

Speak to the story's world in public only when your plan needs it.

A communiqué carries a message to someone outside the room, and the backroom answers for them. A press release speaks to the public in the story, so every other character can react to what you announce. Use one when public opinion matters to your plan, for example to calm a panic or to put pressure on a government, and not as a routine: each one tells your rivals what you are doing.

For the tone of a real announcement, read the Security Council's press statements on the UN's meetings coverage site. A press corps, where a conference runs one, reports on your committee too.

Know the history up to the start date, nothing after it, and expect the story to change.

In a historical crisis you play a real person at a real moment, and the committee may take the story where history did not go. Know what happened up to the committee's start date, because the backroom uses it, and nothing after it: your character cannot know how the crisis ended. A delegate who argues from hindsight, such as “the Soviets will back down”, loses the chairs' trust.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 ended on both tracks at once. In public, the UN's Acting Secretary-General, U Thant, asked the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to keep Soviet ships away from the US naval quarantine around Cuba for a limited time, and President Kennedy to avoid a confrontation at sea. Both agreed, which gave the two leaders time to talk. In private, the President's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, told the Soviet ambassador that the United States would soon remove its missiles from Türkiye, on condition that this was never part of the public deal. On 28 October, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet missiles would leave Cuba; the US missiles left Türkiye in April 1963.

That is a directive and a crisis note in one weekend: a public offer the whole room can vote for, and a private concession that gives the other side a reason to agree, kept quiet so neither side looks weak.

The habits that get notes refused and delegates ignored.

• The big move first: a coup or an assassination in the first session, with nothing built to support it.
• Ignoring the front room. Directives shape the story too, and the dais watches how you work with the room as well as what you send behind it.
• Threats with no purpose. A character who threatens everyone ends up with no allies, in the story and in the room.
• Arguing from hindsight in a historical crisis: your character knows nothing after the committee's start date.
• Storylines the conference bans. Many ban sexual violence and genocide outright, and some ban torture; read the rules, and ask the dais before you write anything close to them.

Procedure still applies in the front room. Motions, voting and points work much as in any committee, so keep the rules of procedure nearby.