National Second Place Winner Kensey Berry Pulaski Academy Little Rock, Arkansas Coordinators: Bill Topich, Ginger Kidd Colonialism and disrupted transition into the capitalist-driven world are often cited as the most significant commonalities among international conflicts. The causal chain must be traced back further, however, in an attempt to divulge the true root of these conflicts: natural resources.1 During the age of colonialism, when global powers in search of infinite treasures vi...

Richard Lee South Carolina America and the New World Order It has become an issue since the end of the Cold War--what is America's foreign policy for the "new world order"? Today especially, foreign lands that were unknown before the Cold War except in geography books, grip the United States's attention and beg for American intervention into their intra-state conflicts. This beckoning immediately raises questions on America's purpose in the world and its national interests. Americans view ...

National Third Place Winner Olga A. Korostelina W. T. Woodson High School Fairfax, Virginia Coordinator: Catherine R. Horowitz A country with rich natural resources is both blessed and cursed. It can enjoy peace and prosperity or may suffer from the “resource curse”: countries that should be wealthy, thanks to large resource reserves, in fact experience dire poverty, deterioration, and conflict.1 In many cases, disputes over rights to control the resources, denial of indigenous land righ...

Joseph Bernabucci St. Albans School District of Columbia   A Just and Lasting Peace: More than the Absence of War The lives and prosperity of millions of people depend on peace and, in turn, peace depends on treaties - fragile documents that must do more than end wars. Negotiations and peace treaties may lead to decades of cooperation during which disputes between nations are resolved without military action and economic cost, or may prolong or even intensify the grievances which provoke...

Tim Shenk Eastern Mennonite High School Harrisonburg, VA Coordinator: Elwood Yoder   How Should Nations Be Reconciled? The challenge of achieving national reconciliation is an issue of great importance, particularly in the nations of Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Africa. Both of these countries have in recent years experienced brutal violations of human rights; the evils of apartheid and "ethnic cleansing" have divided the populations on racial or ethnic lines. How should these nations r...

Elspeth Simpson Pulaski Academy Little Rock, AR Coordinators: Mr. William Topich and Ms. Ginger Kidd   Promoting Global and Regional Security in the Post-Cold War World The post-cold War world presents an interesting paradox. Conflicts are becoming increasingly local while the world is becoming increasingly interconnected: although conflicts are on a smaller scale, their ramifications affect all nations. In addition, better technology means that the American public is better informed an...

Stefanie Nelson Bountiful High School Bountiful, Utah Coordinator: Julia Nelson Third party intervention in civil wars must be re-conceptualized as the collision of two competing philosophies: sovereignty and humanitarianism. On one hand, principles of sovereignty dictate that the people of a state should decide their own course; on the other hand, the bloodshed of innocent human life invokes humanitarianism concerns that motivate action by the international community. Instead of respo...

National First Place Winner Wendy Cai Corona Del Sol High School Tempe, Arizona Coordinator: Virginia Teeples In 2002, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan solemnly declared, "To accept the use of child soldiers in conflict is to accept the destruction of our future, one child at a time... we must reclaim them—every one of them."1 It is critical to understand the legacy of child soldiering and its implications for peacebuilding in order to help young soldiers rejoin civil so...