Almost there

The Model is almost done. So am I. It's been an eventful two days, with two resolutions being developed on Friday afternoon on Extradition Law. Mine (I am Mexico), co-written with India, Panama, Norway, and others, was relatively weaker, but much clearer and in all humility better-written. The other draft resolution was from Slovenia, Romania, Russia, USA, Canada, etc. They pushed (unbindingly, of course) for a multilateral extradition treaty, which most non-western states fear would infringe on our sovereignty. Sweden, who deserves the best delegate awardn IMHO, worked very hard to bring the two to a concensus, as did I. That was tried for hours, and failed.

Both drafts were introduced in committee within minutes of each other. We debated the merits of each for a while, and then an amendment process on the other resolution began. We introduced, debated and passed or rejected some 11 amendments to Draft Resolution A-1. That took a couple hours on Friday night and most of Saturday morning. We got really, really good at it. On the other hand, we were getting NOWHERE, and had a whole 'nother topic yet to be discussed! So the Chairs decided we needed to move on, which we were going to do anyway.

The turning point: a working lunch between Sweden, Russia (a law expert), Angola, myself, Kuwait (anti-everything) and the Bahamas (for mine), as well as North Korea, who was just there for the company, and Romania, who chatted, but didn't participate in the compromise. The compromise was to remove one or two controversial points from A-2 (mine) and add some more of the stuff from A-1 to it than we'd already added. However, introducing those changes was slow: it took an hour and a half to race through the paperwork that was ahead of our "Sweeping Change Amendment"! Besides, Slovenia and the U.S. among others were not happy at all - they saw that the momentum was shifting away from A-1. After arduous amendments, divisions of the question, caucuses, motions to close debate, more divisions of the question, and many procedural motions, I finally found myself feeling sick to my stomach and entirely unable to speak or sit still: we were in voting procedures. By a great misfortune, the other resolution was first, so it had a distinct edge. We voted. It fell, 30-48 with a lot of abstentions (which are essentially No votes). A-2 came before the committee. After 20 minutes of rejecting proposals (4, count 'em, 4), we moved to vote. Ireland, an ally of mine, counted as best he could. The Holy See (a protestant female, for the record) was next to me, comforting me and encouraging me with. Ireland said that we'd come up 6 short. I didn't know what to think - that wasn't official, and I refused to think about it. The Chairs conferred for what seemed an hour, but was probably 45 seconds, and then the Director of the Legal Committee stood at the podium, took up the gavel and proclaimed "This resolution PASSES!!!!!".

WHACK! The gavel cam down, and pandemonium broke loose. It's been a good, good day. And the taste of victory is sweet as summer rain!