Communiqué

A communiqué is an official public message used in diplomacy to convey agreed positions, summarize discussions, or announce decisions. Unlike a treaty, it is generally not legally binding, but it carries significant political weight because it represents the collective voice of the issuing parties. Communiqués are common after bilateral summits, multilateral meetings such as G7 or G20 leaders' summits, and ministerial gatherings within bodies like ASEAN, the African Union, or NATO.

In Model UN, communiqués appear most often in crisis committees. A communiqué is a directive sent outward from the committee or from an individual delegate's portfolio to an entity not represented in the room — for example, a foreign government, a press agency, a military unit, or a private actor. This distinguishes it from a directive, which typically commands assets within a delegate's own control, and from a press release, which is addressed to the public or media.

Typical uses in crisis include:

• Requesting aid, intelligence, or military cooperation from a foreign power
• Issuing demands or ultimatums to a rival state or non-state actor
• Coordinating policy with allies outside the committee
• Opening backchannel negotiations

A well-drafted communiqué states the sender, the recipient, the purpose, and any specific requests or offers. Crisis staff (the "backroom") then decide how the receiving party responds, which can reshape the crisis arc.

In real diplomacy, the Shanghai Communiqué of February 1972, issued jointly by the United States and the People's Republic of China during President Nixon's visit, is a classic example: it established the framework for normalizing US–PRC relations without resolving the Taiwan question outright. The Potsdam Communiqué of August 1945 similarly set out Allied terms at the close of the Second World War. Both illustrate how a non-treaty text can shape decades of policy.