RE: Clarification by the Italian Diplomatic Academy in response to letter sent by IMUNA, NCCA, WFUNA on Dec 22 nd, 2017

Transcription

1 January 3 rd, 2018 RE: Clarification by the Italian Diplomatic Academy in response to letter sent by IMUNA, NCCA, WFUNA on Dec 22 nd, 2017 Att. Schools, Principals, Professors, Students, Families, International MUN Community Att. IMUNA, NCCA, WFUNA Dear All, In recent weeks, several MUN organisations based out of the United States of America (USA) have consistently posted defamatory statements on the internet, and to our partners, with the sole purpose of tarnishing the image of the Italian Diplomatic Academy (IDA). This is as a result of IDA s decision to host a free-of-charge MUN conference for the international MUN community, especially those from an economically disadvantaged background, who generally cannot attend because of the huge costs they would have to pay. The said organisations, i.e. the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA), International Model United Nations Associations (IMUNA) and National Collegiate Conference Organisation (NCCA) and Best Delegate have, with prejudice, openly accused IDA and its inaugural conference under the banner Future We Want Model United Nations, of being fake. They have perpetrated several defamatory actions against Italian Diplomatic Academy (IDA) mentioning information that is purely false, without any legal basis, nor evidence. IDA is an NGO associated with the UN Department of Public Information and a proud member of the United Nations Academic Impact. We work all around Italy and Europe to provide training to youths and young

2 professionals in international affairs and diplomacy, with a particular focus on the knowledge of UN principles and mission. Within this framework, IDA has received several important recognitions from prominent personalities and institutions at both national and international level, as a testimony of the quality, dedication and ethics, which are at the core essence of IDA s work. While we would like to stress that there is no evidence of similar recognitions assigned to neither IMUNA nor NCCA-NMUN, we remain conscious of their efforts to provide MUN training to youths, given our previous work with them. Nevertheless, after more than 40 years of alleged work, there is no proof of national recognition of their work from any US governmental entity. Having received specific appreciations from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Commission, the Italian Ministry of Education and from several UN officials, therefore, it is clear that a presumed illicit use of logos or false statements about our collaboration with the national institutions is still a defamatory and misleading assertion just to try to tarnish IDA s reputation. On the contrary, IMUNA has been recently demanded by United Nations competent office to remove the UN logo from their websites ( and any other reference to IMUNA as partner of the United Nations. Further to this, the United Nations has also inquired about the illegitimate use of the UN emblem on NCCA-NMUN official letters and certificate of attendance and awards, since no organizations outside the United Nations itself is allowed to use UN logo for such a purpose, with the result that all their documents and certificates have neither legal authorization nor legal value. Moreover, after a misconduct led by IMUNA last November, which denotes a total lack of the principles of ethics and fairness that an NGO affiliated with the UN DPI and working in the field of MUNs should have, IDA decided to launch its own MUN FWWMUN, jointly with the World Federation of Model United Nations

3 Associations (WFMUNA). We firmly believe that MUN Conferences should be as inclusive as possible with the sole purpose of engaging youths across all spectrums, instead of having a pro-business agenda. This is the simple reason we are providing up to 1,500 full scholarships to attend FWWMUN free of charge and also with free accommodation in NY, especially for young people who cannot afford to participate in an international conference. WFMUNA has been founded after consultation with some UN competent offices and International experts just to avoid overlapping with other organization names and actions. WFMUNA was established with the intention of building a platform to unite all MUN associations and clubs worldwide for knowledge sharing and coordination. Once fully established, being affiliated with WFMUNA, MUN Associations and Clubs benefit from a world-class experience at MUN conferences and programs by ensuring that the UN guidelines are protected and every youth can benefit from a coordinated effort to achieve the 2030 SDG agenda. A passionate guardian of UN principles, WFMUNA commits to supervising quality in MUN conferences globally, their compliance with UN regulations, to monitoring the conduct and ethics of MUN organizations, and to making Model United Nations programs more accessible for all. We were never guided by the aim to create any confusion with other pre-existing organizations. To all the information requests we receive we always stress the difference between WFMUNA and other organizations, giving the correct references concerning FWWMUN organizers. Similarly, Italy MUN Society (IMUNS) represents a legal entity which is different from the Italian Diplomatic Academy. Furthermore, although many MUN acronyms are similar, IMUNS has nothing to do with IMUNA. Examples include, but are not limited to: Israeli Model UN Association (IMUNA), the Indian International Model United Nations (IIMUN), NYUMUN Model United Nations at New York University, Alberta s High School Model United Nations (HSMUN), Headstart Model United Nations (HSMUN) among others. Indeed, it is quite interesting that IDA has been accused of alleged misleading behaviour. The Italian

4 Diplomatic Academy has been working for more than a decade bot at national and international level and is very proud of its unique training programs, which are held by professors and experts coming from some of the most renowned international universities and institutions. Italian Diplomatic Academy is a brand of reliability in Italy well known for the quality, transparency and ethics that have driven its work for decades. We do not need to create any confusion with any other acronyms, be it in Italy, or elsewhere. IDA was among the few who developed an important marketing capability to enhance and spread the image and reputation of IMUNA- NHSMUN and NCCA-NMUN throughout all the schools and universities in Italy. As a result of our quest to build our own, we are being targeted. For several years, we provided IMUNA with its largest delegation, and paid double the amount, especially in hotel fees, in NY. It is this very money that is now used to subsidise delegate participation by offering 1,500 scholarships. IMUNA even proposed itself as the mediator in the IDA/NY HOTEL negotiations during our attendance to their conference with the purpose of helping us to reduce room-rates for our attendees. It was later discovered that IMUNA had falsified the Hotel contract to have extra economic margin in the transaction and sent us a version of the contract which the hotel confirmed to be fake. Last but not least, in recent months IMUNA has perpetrated a deplorable conduct (typically used by criminal organizations ) by seeking for alliances with other major MUN organizations with the sole aim of protecting their own profit, to the detriment of those who asked for equity and transparency. Similarly, since starting our collaboration with NMUN-NCCA in 2008, guided by the friendship with other Italian organizations they implemented a discriminatory attendance policy against IDA. We started our collaboration with NCCA attending the NMUN program with high quality and prepared students from all the northern Italian Universities: we were the only organization working in the north of Italy but, despite this, NCCA continued to assign us a limited number of seats, giving many more seats to other Italian organizations based in the south of Italy. In 2012 this discriminatory policy culminated in NCCA giving to IDA, which represented

5 almost 20 Italian Universities, half of the seats granted to other Italian organizations working with just 6-8 universities in the centre-south of Italy. Despite our requests for a legitimate clarification about this policy, NCCA never provided us with legitimate grounds to clarify this policy. They found it easier to just withdraw our participation without any prior notice. Guided by the genuine spirit to create future positive leaders and agents of Change, Italian Diplomatic Academy usually chooses its working partners carefully as they should give guarantees of reliability, professionalism, morality and honesty. Unfortunately, in light of all these events, we feel these elements are missing in both the aforementioned organizations and it is for this reason that IDA has now changed its working path towards a different MUN conference. We truly believe that Model UN is an incredible way to train future world leaders, and it is indeed a very rewarding experience all students should have access to. We have participated in MUNs for over a decade bringing together over 1,700 delegates annually to attend MUN conferences organized by the aforementioned organizations. It is only fitting that we invest the money previously used to staff these conferences in hosting our own which will be more affordable. FWWMUN believes in not leaving anyone behind by increasing participation from all countries without prejudice and competition. Doing this will increase knowledge sharing, thus creating maximum impact. Therefore, we discovered that the large sums of money we used to pay to IMUNA and NCCA-NMUN could be invested in giving young people the opportunity to participate at an international level. In particular, this money could sponsor the organization of a large MUN conference in NY, a conference that thanks to the support of several UN actors would be held entirely at the UN Headquarters, once confirmed. We could also: redistribute an important part of the saved money in forms of scholarships to allow a free of charge participation for our delegates; redistribute another part of the saved money in forms of financial aid to cover the housing of our participants; negotiate better rates with partnering hotels to make accommodation in NY more affordable; offer

6 higher standards and benefits for our Secretarial Team and Chairs, so as to guarantee the conference with the highest academic quality. After the serious and perpetrated defamatory actions adopted by IMUNA, IDA has started legal action against it demanding: the reimbursement of the consistent amount of money we paid to IMUNA in October as the first part of the registration fee. However, the amount due is still outstanding from IMUNA in particular, because our lawyers are struggling to find their physical office, apart from the virtual one they are using as their headquarters, the Hilton Hotel. The Hilton Staff denied any office owned by IMUNA in their building. Of greater concern, IMUNA and its Leadership appear to be ghost entities in the official US Government/Federal Registers. In this regard, the sole registered agent that results is the person of Adam Porter Price, the one who last year signed a mandate of exclusive competence to IDA for NHSMUN in Italy and that IMUNA is now arguing to be a fake document counterfeit by IDA since Adam Porter Price is not allegedly part of IMUNA at all. All of the work we have accomplished throughout the years that now has been contested is based on alleged evidence that has no legal basis. Yet, we see some organizations struggling to damage the image of a well-reputed institution, which is now forced to react and protect itself and the MUN community from false accusations, deceptive and deplorable misconducts. Rest assured that neither IMUNA nor NMUN-NCCA or any other organization have the legal authority firstly to dissociate themselves from a conference they have nothing to do with and, secondly, to dispute or question its legitimacy. It is quite evident that the sole interest of this defamatory action is to avoid the implementation of the second MUN conference in the world (the first is the one organized directly by the United Nations-GMUN) which is fully free-of-charge and with such a relevant number of scholarships. Similarly, it is quite evident that hosting

7 such a conference with the participation of delegates coming from more than 110 countries would represent a serious loss of business for the other MUN conferences in NY. What drives the organization of FWWMUN is the desire to establish the first unique MUN in the world to be fully inclusive, allowing equal participation and opportunities for people from all countries, denouncing the idea of MUN as a profit industry. We simply want a MUN FOR ALL because that s the FUTURE WE WANT! We, therefore invite IMUNA, NMUN-NCCA and the other organizations that challenge the legitimacy of the Italian Diplomatic Academy, its work and conduct, to come to the table, to put an end to all this farce that is only hurting the MUN community. Abramo A. Chabib Executive Director Italian Diplomatic Academy