WHAT IS MUN?

Model United Nations, also known as Model UN or MUN, is an educational simulation and
academic competition in which students learn about diplomacy, international relations, and
the United Nations. MUN involves and teaches research, public speaking, debating, and writing
skills, in addition to critical thinking, teamwork, and leadership abilities.[1] Usually
an extracurricular activity, some schools also offer Model UN as a class.[2]

Participants in Model UN conferences, referred to as delegates, are placed in committees and

assigned countries, or occasionally other organizations or political figures, to represent. They are
presented with their assignments in advance, along with a topic or topics that their committee will
discuss. Delegates conduct research before conferences and formulate positions that they will
then debate with their fellow delegates in committee. At the end of a conference, the best-
performing delegates in each committee are sometimes recognized with awards.

Griffin Bell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Griffin B. Bell

72nd United States Attorney General

In office
January 26, 1977 – August 16, 1979

President Jimmy Carter

Preceded by Edward H. Levi

Succeeded by Benjamin R. Civiletti

Personal details

Born Griffin Boyette Bell

October 31, 1918

Americus, Georgia, United States

Died January 5, 2009 (aged 90)

Atlanta, Georgia,

United States

Resting place Oak Grove Cemetery,Americus, Georgia, United

States

Political party Democratic

Spouse(s) Mary Foy Powell Bell

(m. 1943 - 2000; her death)

Nancy Duckworth Kinnebrew Bell

(m. 2001 - 2009; his death)

Children Griffin B. Bell, Jr.

Alma mater Georgia Southwestern College

Walter F. George School of Law (Mercer

University)

Military service

Service/branch United States Army

Years of service 1942-1946

Unit Quartermaster Corps

 Battles/wars World War II

Griffin Boyette Bell (October 31, 1918 – January 5, 2009) was an American lawyer and
former United States Attorney General. He served as the nation's 72nd Attorney General during
the Jimmy Carter administration. He was an attorney with the law firm King & Spalding.

Early years and legal practice[edit]

Bell was born on October 31, 1918 in Americus, Georgia to Adlai Cleveland Bell, a cotton farmer,
and Thelma Leola Bell (Pilcher). He attended several public schools before enrolling at
the Georgia Southwestern College and then the Walter F. George School of Lawat Mercer
University. During World War II, Bell served in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps from
1942 to 1946. Bell served as city attorney of Warner Robins, Georgia while still in school. He
practiced law at King & Spalding in Georgia from 1948 to 1961. He returned to the firm before
and after his service as the United States Attorney General. Bell handled many high-profile cases
after leaving office, such as the internal investigation concerning the cash management practices
of E. F. Hutton & Co..

Political career[edit]
President John F. Kennedy appointed Bell, who had been the co-chairman of Kennedy's
presidential campaign in Georgia, to theCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 1961. He served
for more than fourteen years on the Fifth Circuit. He often played an instrumental role in
mediating disputes between the court's factions during the peak of the American Civil Rights
Movement.

Griffin Bell was to sworn in office as the Attorney General.

In the aftermath of the disputed 1966 Georgia gubernatorial election between Democrat Lester
Maddox and Republican Howard "Bo" Callaway, Bell joined Republican Judge Elbert Tuttle in
striking down the Georgia constitutional provision requiring that the legislature chose the
governor if no general election candidate receives a majority of the vote. The judges concluded
that a malapportioned legislature might "dilute" the votes of the candidate with a plurality, in this
case Callaway. Bell compared legislative selection to the former County Unit System, a kind
ofelectoral college formerly used in Georgia to select the governor but invalidated by the U.S.
Supreme Court. Bell and Tuttle granted a temporary suspension of their ruling to permit appeal to
the U.S. Supreme Court and stipulated that the state could resolve the deadlock so long as the
legislature not make the selection. In a five-to-two decision known as Fortson v. Morris, the high
court struck down the Bell-Tuttle legal reasoning and directed the legislature to choose between
Maddox and Callaway. Two liberal justices, William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas had argued
against legislative selection of the governor, but the court majority, led this time by Hugo
Black took the strict constructionist line and cleared the path for Maddox's ultimate election.[1]
Bell resigned from the Fifth Circuit in March 1976 to resume his law practice at King & Spalding.
In December 1976, U.S. President Jimmy Carter nominated him to become the 72nd United
States Attorney General. He served until August 1979. His Watergate-era nomination was initially
controversial because he was a Southerner and a personal friend of the President. However, by
the time he left office, Bell had allayed the concerns and won the praise of most of his critics in
the United States Senate and the media. He was credited with bringing needed independence
and professionalism to the Department of Justice. Unprecedented and not duplicated since, Bell
posted publicly every day his third party contacts, including meetings and calls with the White
House, members of Congress, or other non-Justice Department individuals, to rebuild confidence
in the Department of Justice.
On April 10, 1978, Attorney General Bell announced the indictment of former Acting FBI
Director L. Patrick Gray, Mark Felt and former FBI Assistant Director Edward Miller for
authorizing break-ins of New York City radical political activists. Bell introduced requirements that
any authorized illegal activities must be made in writing. Five Department of Justices attorneys
resigned over the alleged reluctance of the Attorney Bell to pursue others in the department for
illegal activities related to domestic spying. [2]
Bell led the effort to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. The Carter
administration, advised by Bell, greatly increased the number of women and minorities serving
on the federal bench. Bell recruited Wade McCree, an African American then serving as a judge
on the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, to serve as United States Solicitor General,
and Drew S. Days, III, an African American lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund he had
admired in oral arguments before him, to head the Civil Rights Division. Bell successfully led the
negotiations to divide his former appellate court, the Fifth Circuit (spanning
from Georgia to Texas) into two courts: a new Fifth Circuit based inNew Orleans and an Eleventh
Circuit based in Atlanta. Bell also led efforts to professionalize the Federal Bureau of
Investigation after Watergate and recruited another federal appellate judge to recommend to the
President as Director, Judge William Webster of the Eighth Circuit. After Bell resigned as
Attorney General in August 1979, President Carter thereafter appointed him as Special
Ambassador to the Helsinki Convention.
From 1985 to 1987, Bell served as a member of the U.S. Secretary of State's Advisory
Committee on South Africa. In 1989, he was appointed Vice Chairman of President George H.
W. Bush's Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform. During the Iran-Contra
affair investigation, he was counsel to President George H.W. Bush. As a lawyer during this
period, he specialized in corporate internal investigations, many that were high-profile, like that
for E.F. Hutton following federal indictments for its cash management practices.

Bell being sworn in on the Court of Military Commission Review. Bell is the second individual from the left.

In September 2004 he was appointed the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Military
Commission Review.[3] Bell was replaced by Judge Frank J. Williams in July 2007, when the first
two cases were appealed to the Court, due to ill health.

IRANIAN REVOLUTION

The Iranian Revolution (also known as the Islamic Revolution or the 1979
Revolution;[4][5][6][7][8][9] Persian: ‫انقالب اسالمی‬,Enghelābe Eslāmi or ‫ )انقالب بیست و دو بهمن‬refers to events
involving the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was
supported by the United States[citation needed], and its eventual replacement with an Islamic
republic under the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, supported by
various leftist and Islamic organizations[10]and Iranian student movements.

Demonstrations against the Shah commenced in October 1977, developing into a campaign
of civil resistance that was religious based (with secular elements).[11][12][13] and intensified in
January 1978.[14] Between August and December 1978 strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the
country. The Shah left Iran for exile on January 16, 1979, as the last Persian monarch, leaving
his duties to a regency council and an opposition-based prime minister. Ayatollah Khomeini was
invited back to Iran by the government,[15][16] and returned to Tehran to a greeting by several
million Iranians.[17] The royal reign collapsed shortly after on February 11 when guerrillas and
rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting, bringing Khomeini to
official power.[18][19] Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on April 1,
1979,[20] and to approve a new theocratic-republican constitution[11][12][21][22] whereby Khomeini
became Supreme Leader of the country, in December 1979.

The revolution was unusual for the surprise it created throughout the world:[23] it lacked many of
the customary causes of revolution (defeat at war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or
disgruntled military),[24] occurred in a nation that was enjoying relatively good material wealth and
prosperity,[15][22] produced profound change at great speed,[25] was massively popular, resulted in
the exile of many Iranians,[26] and replaced a pro-Western semi-absolute monarchy [15] with an
anti-Western authoritarian theocracy[15][21][22][27][28] based on the concept of Guardianship of the
Islamic Jurists (or velayat-e faqih). It was a relatively non-violent revolution, and helped to
redefine the meaning and practice of modern revolutions (although there was violence in its
aftermath).[29]

Its outcome – an Islamic Republic "under the guidance of a religious scholar from Qom" – was,
as one scholar put it, "clearly an occurrence that had to be explained".[30]

The 1979 revolution[edit]

The 1979 Revolution, which ousted the pro-American Shah and replaced him with the anti-
American Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, surprised the United States
government, its State Department and intelligence services, which "consistently underestimated
the magnitude and long-term implications of this unrest".[43] Six months before the revolution
culminated, the CIA had produced a report, stating that "Persia is not in a revolutionary or even a
'prerevolutionary' situation."[44]

Revolutionary students feared the power of the United States—particularly its Central Intelligence
Agency to overthrow a new government. One source of this concern was a book by CIA
agent Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. titled Countercoup: The Struggle for Control of Iran. Many students
had read excerpts from the book and thought that the CIA would attempt to implement this
countercoup strategy.[45]

Khomeini, who referred to America as the "Great Satan",[46] instantly got rid of the Shah’s prime
minister and replaced him with a moderate politician called Mehdi Bazargan. Until this point, the
Carter Administration was still hoping for normal relationships with Iran, sending its National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

The Islamic revolutionaries wished to extradite and execute the ousted Shah, and Carter refused
to give him any further support or help return him to power. The Shah, suffering from
terminal cancer, requested entry into the United States for treatment. The American embassy in
Tehran opposed the request, as they were intent on stabilizing relations between the new interim
revolutionary government of Iran and the United States.[37] However, President Carter agreed to
let the Shah in, after pressure from Henry Kissinger,Nelson Rockefeller and other pro-Shah
political figures. Iranians’ suspicion that the Shah was actually trying to conspire against the
Iranian Revolution grew; thus, this incident was often used by the Iranian revolutionaries to justify
their claims that the former monarch was an American puppet, and this led to the storming of the
American embassy by radical students allied with the Khomeini faction.[37]

The 1979 Iran hostage crisis[edit]

Main article: Iran hostage crisis

See also: Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the United States

On November 4, 1979, the revolutionary group Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line,
angered that the recently deposed Shah had been allowed into the United States, occupied the
American embassy in Tehran and took American diplomats hostage. The 52 American diplomats
were held hostage for 444 days. In Iran, the incident was seen by many as a blow against
American influence in Iran and the liberal-moderate interim government of Prime Minister Mehdi
Bazargan, who opposed the hostage taking and resigned soon after. Some Iranians were
concerned that the United States may have been plotting another coup against their country in
1979 from the American embassy.[47] In the United States, the hostage-taking was seen as a
violation of a centuries-old principle of international law that granted diplomats immunity from
arrest and diplomatic compounds sovereignty in the territory of the host country they occupy.[48]

Vice President George H. W. Bush and other VIPs wait to welcome the former hostages to Iran home

The United States military attempted a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24,
1980, which resulted in an aborted mission and the deaths of eight American military men. The
crisis ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19, 1981. On January
20, 1981, the date the treaty was signed, the hostages were released. The Iran-United States
Claims Tribunal(located in The Hague, Netherlands) was established for the purpose of handling
claims of American nationals against Iran and of Iranian nationals against the United States.
American contact with Iran through The Hague covers only legal matters. The crisis led to lasting
economic and diplomatic damage. On April 7, 1980, the United States broke diplomatic relations
with Iran, a break which has yet to be restored. On April 24, 1981, the Swiss
Government assumed representation of American interests in Tehran via an interests section.
Iranian interests in the United States are represented by the Iranian Interests Section of the
Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Economic consequences of the Iran hostage crisis[edit]

See also: Sanctions against Iran

Families wait for the former hostages to disembark the plane.

Before the Revolution, the United States was Iran's foremost economic and military partner. This
facilitated the modernization of Iran's infrastructure and industry, with as many as 30,000
American expatriates residing in the country in a technical, consulting, or teaching capacity.
Some analysts argue that the transformation may have been too rapid, fueling unrest and
discontent among an important part of the population in the country and leading to the Revolution
in 1979.

After the 1979 seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran, the United States froze about $12
billion in Iranian assets, including bank deposits, gold and other properties. According to
American officials, most of those were released in 1981 as part of the deal to release the
hostages. Some assets—Iranian officials say $10 billion, but U.S. officials say much less—
remain frozen, pending resolution of legal claims arising from the Revolution.

Commercial relations between Iran and the United States are restricted by
American sanctions and consist mainly of Iranian purchases of food, spare parts, and medical
products as well as American purchases of carpets and food. Sanctions originally imposed in
1995 by President Bill Clinton were renewed by President Bush, who cited the "unusual and
extraordinary threat" to American national security posed by Iran. The 1995 executive orders
prohibit American companies and their foreign subsidiaries from conducting business with Iran,
while banning any "contract for the financing of the development of petroleum resources located
in Iran". In addition, the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 (ILSA) imposed mandatory and
discretionary sanctions on non-American companies investing more than $20 million annually in
the Iranian oil and natural gas sectors.
The ILSA was renewed for five more years in 2001. Congressional bills signed in 2006 extended
and added provisions to the act; on September 30, 2006, the act was renamed the Iran
Sanctions Act (ISA), as it no longer applied to Libya, and extended until December 31, 2011.

United States attack of 1988[edit]

In 1988, the United States launched Operation Praying Mantis against Iran, claiming that it was
retaliation for the Iranian mining of areas of the Persian Gulf as part of the Iran-Iraq war. The
American attack was the largest American naval combat operation since World War
II.[59] American action began with coordinated strikes by two surface groups that neutralized the
Sassan oil platform and the Sirri oil platform of Iran. Iran lost one major warship and a smaller
gunboat. Damage to the oil platforms was eventually repaired.[60] Iran sued for reparations at
the International Court of Justice, stating that the United States breached the 1955 Treaty of
Amity. The court dismissed the claim but noted that "the actions of the United States of America
against Iranian oil platforms on October 19, 1987 (Operation Nimble Archer) and April 18, 1988
(Operation Praying Mantis) cannot be justified as measures necessary to protect the essential
security interests of the United States of America."[61] The American attack helped pressure Iran
to agree to a ceasefire with Iraq later that summer.[62]

1988: Iran Air Flight 655[edit]

Main article: Iran Air Flight 655

On July 3, 1988, near the end of the Iran–Iraq War, the U.S. Navy guided missile
cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iranian Airbus A300B2, which was on a scheduled
commercial flight in Iranian airspace over the Strait of Hormuz. The attack killed 290 civilians
from six nations, including 66 children. USS Vincennes was in the Persian Gulf as part
of Operation Earnest Will. The United States initially contended that flight 655 was a warplane
and then said that it was outside the civilian air corridor and did not respond to radio calls. Both
statements were untrue, and the radio calls were made on military frequencies to which the
airliner did not have access.[63] According to the Iranian government, the attack was an intentional
and unlawful act. Iran refused to accept the idea of mistaken identification, arguing that this
constituted gross negligence and recklessness amounting to an international crime, because the
aircraft was not on a trajectory that threatened the Vincennes and had not aimed radar at
it.[64] The United States has expressed regret for the loss of innocent life but has not apologized to
the Iranian government.[65] The men of the Vincennes were all awarded Combat Action
Ribbons for completion of their tours in a combat zone. Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator,
received the Navy Commendation Medal, often given for acts of heroism or meritorious service,
but a not-uncommon end-of-tour medal for a second tour division officer. According to the History
Channel, the medal citation noted his ability to "quickly and precisely complete the firing
procedure."[66] However, in 1990, The Washington Post listed Lustig's awards as one being for his
entire tour from 1984 to 1988 and the other for his actions relating to the surface engagement
with Iranian gunboats. In 1990, Rogers was awarded the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally
meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer ... from
April 1987 to May 1989." The award was given for his service as the Commanding Officer of
the Vincennes, and the citation made no mention of the downing of Iran Air 655.[67]