February 20, 2019 – The Model United Nations (MUN) at Notre Dame university-Louaize (NDU) hosted a round table discussion under the heading “The Challenge of Providing Social Justice for Lebanese Citizens and Refugees in Lebanon.” The event was held to commemorate the World Day for Social Justice, and featured guest speakers Martin Borgeaud, Chief Technical Advisor Justice, Security and Human Rights at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Emmanuel Gignac, Deputy Representative of Operations at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Head of Logistics at the NDU MUN, Sarah Ghaleb, opened the panel by welcoming all comers.
Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Elie Badr spoke next reflecting on how far the NDU MUN has come in the few short years in which it has been around. He reiterated NDU’s position on promoting a holistic education, and praised the MUN’s efforts saying: “We value out of class education a lot, and what you are doing today exemplifies out of class education.” Dr. Badr also spoke out against corruption and the systematized social injustices that Lebanon faces, and reminded those present of the pressing need to secure basic social justices.
Borgeaud discussed the nature of social justice saying: “What people value the most is quality fairness, equity, laws and values that protect against discrimination and abuse of authority. And as the students and professors said in the Vox Pop interviews: it means equal access to opportunities. Promoting social justice means expanding the choices people have to lead the lives which they value most … We advance social justice when we remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, ethnicity, religion, culture or visibility.”
Borgeaud went on to describe the efforts Lebanon has made to respond to increasing demand for legal equality over the past few years, and the UNDP’s role in them. Specifically, Borgeaud mentioned the law criminalizing torture, the law on domestic violence, and the law establishing a human rights commission, as well as the reforms to conform the traditionally state-centric security institutions into services for the population. Part of these reforms was a push to increase the recruitment of female personnel to serve in law enforcement, as part of the UN’s fifth sustainable development goal towards gender equality. Borgeaud rounded out his talks with a brief overview of the Lebanese perspective on reforms, saying that how reforms are achieved matters just as much as what the reforms propose to change.
Gignac then gave his own presentation on refugees in Lebanon, with particular attention paid to the Syrian refugee crisis. Gignac defined refugees as people who based on well-founded fear of persecution on ethnic, religious, and/or national grounds can no longer avail themselves to seek protection from their own state. In such cases, other states welcome these displaced people even though they aren’t part of the official citizenry. Gignac discussed the logistical difficulty of taking care of refugees in Lebanon – which has far and away the most refugees per capita in the world – and the challenges to maintain good conditions as refugees often rely on the national infrastructure. However, things are not entirely grim, as Gignac also brought up the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan the funding for which has allowed the UNCHR to keep the percentage of refugees below the extreme poverty line stable despite increasing numbers.
The talks were followed by a Q&A session mediated by current MUN Secretary General Stephanie Sleilati.