For this edition of FerMUN at the International Labour organization, the committee ILO3 on environment is in charge of debating two issues during 3 days.
The first issue debated by the delegates is: “How can we limit the environmental impact of fast fashion?” Indeed, the fast fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in our world.
During the first lobbying session, the delegations discussed and created alliances in order to propose two resolutions. Several different agreements were reached during this time between delegates which included the ideas that fast fashion should be stopped by making changes at a slow pace or, to continue selling fast fashion products, but try to modify some aspects of this industry to diminish the environmental impact. Moreover two major alliances were formed during the lobbying session which diverged opinions on the economical aspect that fast fashion has.
Two delegations managed to submit their resolutions. The first one was presented by the delegation of the Chinese government which aimed to take new measures in order to protect the environment whilst still acknowledging the crucial economic advantages this industry has. Many delegations co-submitted this resolution as they believed it would bring innovative solutions to them.
Multiple amendments were made by different delegations to add more details and clauses to the resolution in order for it to be more appealing to their position and country. Amendments were easily passed such as the one submitted by the delegation of Australia government in order to add details to the resolution and allow all delegations a more efficient way. This amendment passed with the majority of delegations voting in favor.
As a whole, most delegations supported this resolution which passed with the majority of votes in favor.
As for the second resolution on the first topic, it was presented by the delegation of the Swedish workers and it generated an intense debate with the delegations of the Chinese government. Following an intense start, a few notable amendments were made especially by the delegation of Romania which nearly the whole house voted in favor of.
After all the thrilling debates, the resolution was voted by the majority of the delegations and therefore adopted.
This stage concluded the debate on the first issue which was then followed by the lobbying session for the second issue : « How to promote “green jobs” without penalizing employees whose jobs are harmful to the environment? ». The delegates were divided between two resolutions which were presented by, on one hand the delegation of Australia’s workers and the other hand the delegation of the Rwanda government.
During the debate time of the second resolution, the delegation of the government of Australia proposed an amendment to strike the whole resolution which generated many discussions between the delegates. Indeed, this amendment caused an important conflict between China’s government and Rwanda’s government against Bangladesh’s government. In the end, this amendment was not adopted.
To conclude, all four resolutions proposed for both issues were adopted which shows how determined all the delegations were to find a common ground and come up with innovative solutions.
Mina DEGRUSON and Assan SANGARÉ