Legal: The Legal Committee and Intellectual Property Theft

Written by Swasthi Rajesh Shankar of Inkling for UWCSEA MUN.

The Legal committee headed by Head chair Gautum Balasubramaniam and deputy chairs Meghna Abrol and Isha Sinha had begun the debate this morning. The committee focused on intellectual property theft between countries. It is understood that this is a very pressing matter that is quite popular in today’s world. The United States was the main submitter of this resolution.

The delegation of the United States felt that as a country, it faced a lot of intellectual property theft, particularly from China.“China is stealing our (USA’s) intellectual property.” said the American delegate. The resolution was focused very much on China and its economy. The American delegate claimed that a large part of the Chinese economy comes from ‘counterfeit goods’ and argued that this needed to be stopped because “China is an influence to all other countries who produce counterfeit goods.” Other delegations such as the United Kingdom, Djibouti and Germany also spoke up on this matter and stressed on the fact that China was illegally profiting from these immoral deeds.

However, the Chinese delegation felt that it was being targeted in this debate while other countries were also accountable for the same actions. “This resolution specifically targets China,” said the Chinese delegate, Emillie. She also believed that the American delegate was hypocritical and that since the US has no proof that China produces counterfeit copies of goods, the accusations are pointless. ​
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The Chinese delegate also pointed out that “China is a partner to many countries… Many of your countries depend on China”. She believes that they needed to work together to stop this instead of  targeting the country. The DPRK delegate supported this argument and said that “China has been working tirelessly to counter this IP theft”. She believes that this kind of theft is being reduced because of the Chinese government's efforts to control production of illegal counterfeit goods. 

The United States’ delegation moved to strike China’s economy in their very first clause. This caused quite a bit of controversy and a lot of debate between the delegations United States, China and their allies. The delegations of the DPRK, India, New Zealand, Netherlands and Sweden were quite actively engaged in the point of interest speeches as well as in debate. Many countries believe that striking China’s economy would cause problems for everyone involved in trade with the country and therefore made several moves amend the clauses. The Singaporean delegate claimed that the delegation ‘intends to help support developing nations as they are vital for world trade and balancing economy.’. To do this the delegation moved to amend a clause that urged countries to work with developing nations. This amendment was passed with an overwhelming majority.

The delegation of China and it’s allies strongly believed that this resolution would ruin China’s economy and cause harm to several innocents.  If this resolution is passed ''We would go into an economic Crisis”, claimed the delegation of China. The delegates continued to come up with excellent points, engaged in a heated discussion and debate to win against their rivals. “I’ve been saying things I personally didn’t agree with… because of my alliance,” said Ashley, the delegate of Singapore. Most delegates feel the same way and are forced to keep their personal bias out of the debate. However, after an extensive amount of debating, the resolution was passed, much to China’s discontent.

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