Resolution Whereas Clause

In Model UN, a "whereas clause" is the colloquial term—borrowed from Anglo-American legislative drafting and from the early UN style of the 1940s—for what is now formally called a preambulatory clause. These clauses make up the first half of a draft resolution and set out the background: previous UN action, relevant treaties, factual conditions on the ground, guiding principles, and the rationale for the operative steps that follow.

Although real UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions no longer open clauses with the literal word "Whereas," many Model UN conferences still use the term informally. In the actual UN style adopted over time, each preambulatory clause begins with an italicized participle or adjective drawn from a standard list, such as:

• Recalling (used heavily to cite prior resolutions, e.g., "Recalling its resolution 2231 (2015)")
• Noting with concern
• Reaffirming
• Bearing in mind
• Emphasizing
• Deeply disturbed
• Guided by (often followed by reference to the UN Charter)

Each preambulatory clause ends with a comma, not a semicolon or period, and the entire preamble forms a single grammatical sentence that leads into the operative clauses.

Preambulatory clauses are not voted on separately in most rules of procedure, and they generally cannot be amended through standard friendly or unfriendly amendments at many conferences—though practice varies (THIMUN, NMUN, and Harvard WorldMUN each handle amendments slightly differently). They also create no binding obligations; their function is rhetorical and contextual, anchoring the resolution in existing international law and prior UN practice.

Strong delegates use whereas clauses strategically: to signal alignment with bloc positions, to invoke authoritative sources such as the UN Charter or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to frame the problem so that the operative clauses appear to follow naturally.