Rules of Procedure

How to MUN
Some Key Terms
1. Delegate: A participant acting as a representative of a member state in an MUN
committee
2. Agenda: The main/ broad topic of discussion under the consideration of the
committee. Example: Russia-Ukraine Crisis
3. Chairperson: A member of the EB, who moderates the debate, keeps time, rules
upon decisions and and enforces rules of procedure.
4. Vice Chairperson: The Second in command to the Chairperson, responsible for
maintaining Verbatim, marking and assisting the Chairperson.
5. Rapporteur: A member of the EB, whose duties are taking roll call, going through
chits passed and administrative duties in committee.

NOTE: The Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson and the Rapporteur together form the
Executive Board (EB).
Some Key Terms
1. Placard: A piece of paper with the country/portfolio's name that a delegate uses for
recognition by the Executive board by raising it in the air. Placard must be held straight
at all times.
2. Member State: A country that has ratified the Charter of the United Nations, and
whose application to join has been accepted by the General Assembly and the Security
Council. There are 193 Member states.
8. Observer State: A state, national organization, regional organization, or
non-governmental organization that is not a member of the UN but participates in its
debates. Observers can vote on procedural matters but not substantive matters.
4. Formal debate: The "standard" type of debate at an MUN conference, in which
delegates speak for a certain time in an order based on a speakers' list.
5. Informal Debate: In debate consists of sessions called caucuses, there are two
types of caucuses; moderated caucuses and unmoderated caucuses.
Recognition
A delegate may not speak whenever they intend to. All delegates need to be
recognized by the Chairperson/ Executive board before speaking. To be
recognized, one may simply raise their placard. The Chairperson will thus call
out your country/portfolio's name and may ask you why you wish to be
recognized. In the case that a delegate does speak when not recognised,
they will be punished.

If the chairperson deems your request appropriate, you may follow with the
appropriate action, else sit down and continue working.
Motions
Everything in an MUN is done via motions. A motion is a request to the
committee for a certain action to be done. A motion is voted on by the entire
committee. Most of these are procedural votes, which means everyone must
vote on them with either a yes or a no.

There are multiple different motions in an MUN, most of them are discussed
below.
Setting the Agenda

The first order of business for any committee is setting the agenda. The
agenda is the topic which will be discussed throughout the MUN.

Procedure: "With prior permission from the Executive Board, the delegate of
_________ would like to raise a motion to set the agenda as _________."
Provisional Speaker’s list
Although very rarely used, the Provisional Speaker's List is a list of speakers
wishing to speak on a specific agenda idea. In a PSL there are usually 4 delegates:
two speaking in favour and two against a given proposal or topic. The total and
individual speaker’s time as well as the speakers themselves are chosen by the
chairperson.

Procedure: "With prior permission from the Executive Board, the delegate of
_________ would like to raise a motion to establish the Provisional Speaker's
List, on agenda ________.”
Roll Call
After setting the agenda the next order of business in a Model UN committee is
the roll call. During the roll call, the EB reads aloud the names of each member
of the committee. When a delegate's country's name is called, he or she must
respond 'present' or 'present and voting.' A delegate responding 'present and
voting' may not abstain on a substantive vote.

Ideally, a country which is directly involved in the situation at hand should respond
by "present and voting'.
The General Speaker’s list
An essential part of conventional committees, the General Speaker's List is a list
of speakers wishing to speak on any aspect of the agenda. The GSL is initiated at
the very beginning of the committee, and speakers can be periodically added. As
soon as the GSL gets exhausted, the committee is deemed to be over.

Procedure: "With prior permission from the Executive Board, the delegate of
_________ would like to raise a motion establish the General Speaker's List with
individual speaker’s time being _________."
Default Time: The default individual speaker's time for the GSL is 90 seconds
(min: 60 sec, max: 120 sec).
Moderated Caucus
A moderated caucus is a type of informal debate about a subtopic of the agenda.
It allows delegates to elaborate more on certain issues which they think the
committee should discuss in detail. During moderated caucuses, delegates must
remain seated and only speak when given recognition, similar to GSL. Moderated
caucus have a total time as well as individual speaker’s time.

Procedure: “With the prior permission of the Executive Board, the delegate of _________
would like to raise a motion to suspend formal debate and move into a moderated caucus
on topic _________ with individual speaker’s time being _________ and total time being
_________.”

Default Time: The default speaker’s time for a moderated caucus is 60 seconds. (Min: 45
seconds, maximum: 120 seconds) and the default total time is 15 minutes. (Min: 10 mins,
Max: 30 mins). Individual speaker’s time must be less than that of GSL.
Unmoderated Caucus
A moderated caucus is another type of informal debate; in which delegates can
leave their seats to mingle and speak freely. This enables the free sharing of ideas
to an extent not possible in formal debate or even in a moderated caucus. They
are frequently used to lobby with other delegates, sort countries into blocs and to
write working papers and draft resolutions.

Procedure: “With the prior permission of the Executive Board, the delegate of
_________ would like to raise a motion to suspend formal debate and move into
an unmoderated caucus with total time being _________.”

Default time: The default total time for an unmoderated caucus is 15 minutes.
There is no minimum or maximum time.
Round Robin
A round robin usually takes place in an unconventional committee. In a round
robin, all the delegates are obligated to speak in a particular order (usually
depending on how they sit) on the topic that is specified at the introduction of the
round robin.

Procedure: "With prior permission from the Executive Board, the delegate of
_________ would like to raise a motion to suspend formal debate and move into a
round robin with the agenda _________ with individual speaker’s time being
_________ and total time being _________.”

Default Time: The default speaker’s time for a round robin is 60 seconds. (Min: 45
seconds, maximum: 120 seconds) and the default total time is 15 minutes. (Min: 10
mins, Max: 30 mins). Individual speaker’s time must be less than that of GSL.
Points in an MUN
Points are general requests raised by a delegate for a multitude of things. There
are four points, point of personal privilege, point of parliamentary inquiry, points of
order, points of information.

1. Point of Personal Privilege : A point of personal privilege is raised when a

delegate is experiencing physical discomfort. For example, a point of personal
privilege can be raised when one feels too hot/cold or when they are having
audibility issues. This is the only point which can be raised in the midst of a
delegate's speech (although not recommended unless necessary). The floor is
always open for this point.
2. Point of Parliamentary Enquiry: Points of parliamentary inquiries can be
raised by delegates at any point in the meeting other than during speeches. This
point is raised in order to ask any procedural question from the Executive Board.
For example if you want to inquire about the number of votes, quorum, status of
GSL, etc.

3. Point of Order: Points of order can be raised by delegates at any point in the
meeting other than during speeches. If the delegates believes a factual
inaccuracy has been stated in the committee, this can either be from another
delegate or the chair themselves. A point of order can also be raised to
questions the proceedings of the EB/Committee.

Procedure: “The Delegate of _________ claimed “_________." The correct

statement is “_________.”

Note: Make sure to quote the exact words you are correcting.
Note: You might be asked the source of your corrected statement, be sure to have that ready.
4. Point of Information: Another name for questions, points of information can be
raised by any delegate to ask other delegates questions, generally regarding their
speeches and other things they have said during the committee. These questions
can be asked verbally when the floor is open for them or via chit at any time. All
POIs must end with a questions mark.

In order of higher to lower precedence, the points are as follows:

1. Point of Personal Privilege
2. Point of Parliamentary Enquiry
3. Point of Order
4. Point of Information.
Yields in an MUN
Yielding is how a delegate wishes to use their leftover time after a speech. There
are 3 types of yields:

1. Yielding to questions: Yielding to questions allows other delegates to ask you

points of information after your speech.

2. Yielding to the floor/EB: Yielding to EB means that you handover your extra
time to the EB who may use it in any way they wish, which includes asking
questions.

3. Yielding to another delegate: When you yield to another delegate, that delegate
gets your extra time added to their individual speaker’s time.
Chits
Chits may be used by delegates to communicate with other delegates or the EB
when the committee is in session. You may write anything you want; you use chits
to lobby, provide others with your research, send the EB your views on a subject
and so on.

Chits may also be used to raise a point without having to disturb the entire
committee. A chit may be marked as ‘via EB’ this means that the message would
first go to the EB for review and then be sent to its recipient.
Types of chits
There are 3 main types of chits in a committee:

1. Points of information chits: These chits are used to ask POIs to delegates if you
didn’t get the chance to ask them verbally. These chits must be marked “via EB
(POI)” so they can look at it and mark you accordingly.

2. Direct chits: These chits are sent from one delegate to others. These chits can
be used for anything and are not viewed by the EB.

3. Substantive chits: These chits are used to present information to the EB that a
delegate could not include in their speeches, due to reasons such as time
constraints, etc. These will be marked only if marked as “via EB (substantive)”.
EXAMPLES:
To: India
Via EB (POI)
From: Japan

The delegate of India accused other countries for allowing slash and burn
agriculture, but does India not practice the same at large themselves?

To: USA
From: China

BROOOO! Your speech was so bad, that made no sense!

Resolution
A resolution is a document that contains all the issues that the committee wants to
solve and the proposed solutions to that issue. Technically, the resolution should
be called a draft resolution (DR for short) before it is voted upon and then called a
resolution after it is successfully passed during voting.
Any delegate in the committee can write a DR (although in rare instances an
observer state is not allowed to directly write a resolution). The author of a DR is
called a sponsor. Most DRs have multiple sponsors because it takes a group of
countries to share good ideas and to come to a consensus.
Delegates who do not agree with all the points of the DR but are
interested for it to be discussed are called signatories.

Your chairperson will inform you about the minimum number of

signatories and maximum number of sponsors during your committees.
Plan Of Action
While a plan of action does not follow as strict of a format as a resolution, it is
still a detailed document explaining the actions the committee wants to go ahead
with, it should be as detailed as possible.

The executive board will inform you about the format if and when the plan of
action is needed.
Directives
Directives are like special updates that a delegate wishes to be introduced to the
committee. Directives detail out how your particular portfolio is going to handle the
crisis at hand. All directives are first sent to the EB who approves of the actions
before announcing them to the committee.

For example: If you are the director of the CIA, you may introduce a directive
about certain intelligence info gathered in Afghanistan about militants, a potential
bomb blast, etc.

Please make sure your directives remain within the powers of your portfolio and
use them sparingly and sensibly.
Awards
MUNs generally consist of 3 awards in each committee:

(in order)
1. Best delegate
2. High commendation (there may be multiple of these in larger committees)
3. Special mention (there may be multiple of these in larger committees)

These awards are based on the marking done by your EB throughout the MUN,
do not try and bribe them. Unless…
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