°¼Í¹ÊÓƵ

Topics:

Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.

Background:

First Committee is the principle global forum for countries to address issues of war, armed conflict and armaments. It deals with some of the same issues as the Security Council, but works more broadly to set global disarmament priorities, policies and goals. First Committee resolutions are politically and morally binding, not legally. It can request and appeal for state action. Unlike the Security Council it cannot demand action.

As the technology of war evolves, First Committee targets global attention on the weapons and policies it thinks most dangerous and destabilizing. Some governments are convinced that nuclear disarmament is overwhelming and must come before any other action. Others want to focus on more immediate killers like landmines and cluster munitions. Some believe only threats from states are the business of the UN system, others think terrorism is equally important.

Like most UN bodies, the committee tries to work through consensus whenever possible, to insure as much international support for its recommendations as possible. But often compromise is impossible, a reality reflected in voting patterns.

Topics:

Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.

Background:

Although is does not deal directly with international issues of peace and security, an observer could be forgiven for mistaking Third Committee for one of the most dangerous places in the UN. Differences among Member States on issues of principle and national sovereignty makes its agenda visionary and controversial. 

For Member States, Committee Three deals with some of the most sensitive issues of domestic development and national sovereignty. The Committee discusses questions relating to the advancement of women, the protection of children, indigenous issues, the treatment of refugees, the promotion of fundamental freedoms through the elimination of racism and racial discrimination, and the right to self- determination. The Committee also addresses important social development questions such as issues related to youth, family, ageing, persons with disabilities, crime prevention, criminal justice, and international drug control.

Topics:

Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.

Background:

Special Political, GA Fourth Committee, specializes in some of the most demanding issues facing the international community, issues that divide the UN's 193 member states, including disputes over state sovereignty, shared resources and rival paths of economic and social development. Unlike the Security Council, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, but the path they create influences everyone.

Issues focusing on peoples lacking national self-determination (ruled by other countries) are among the most controversial of all for the UN system. How do states adjust with rising demands of previously unrecognized or powerless groups? Do they give up territory, concede autonomy, or assert their sovereign authority? Should the UN create special structures to deal with such problems? How does the international community ameliorate the suffering of peoples caught up in rebellion and political turmoil?

Topics:

• Ensuring effectiveness of the Security Council in international peace and security
• Representation of UN Member States on the Security Council
• Strengthening fair and efficient funding of UN activity

Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.

Background

The UN Special Session: General Conference of the Members of the UN is a momentous opportunity to reform the UN. The survival of the UN is not in doubt, but its relevance and effectiveness are. 

Can the organization, created in 1945 to manage the dangers of World War Three, be adapted for the conditions and challenges of a much different world 80 years later? Delegates at °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC will consider how to make the UN better suited to global affairs in the 21st Century.

The UN faces competition. With the rise of alternatives to the UN, like the Group of 20 (G20), the BRICS (led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and regional organizations like the European Union and African Union, the world has an ever more ways to address major issues. Domestic political polarization worsens the UN’s difficulties. Liberals may ask too much of it. Populists on the Right leave it with too little.

How to adapt the UN for contemporary global needs? According to the UN Charter, Article 108, the General Assembly leads changes to the UN Charter. Article 109 authorizes ‘A General Conference of the Members of the United Nations for the purpose of reviewing the present Charter’, the body simulated at °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC 49.

Topics:

Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.

Background:

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is a principal organ of the UN. The UN Charter states the ECOSOC 'may make or initiate studies and reports with respect to international economic, social, cultural, educational, health, and related matters and may make recommendations with respect to any such matters to the General Assembly to the Members of the United Nations, and to the specialized agencies concerned.' For more on its role, see the .

The ECOSOC consists of 54 Member States, elected by the General Assembly to three-year terms. Seats are allocated for geographic representation of UN regional groups. It normally meets for one four-week session each July.

The ECOSOC is the central forum for international economic and social issues, and formulating policy recommendations to Member States and the United Nations System. It also oversees cooperation with over 1,600 non- governmental organizations recognized by the UN.

The most important power of the ECOSOC is oversight of UN specialized agencies, such as the UN Development Program UNDP), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Program (WFP). It also can instruct the Secretary-General. But like the General Assembly, it cannot demand action from the sovereign UN Member States. ECOSOC only can request action and set goals for the Member States. This is ECOSOC's greatest challenge; how to make sure Member States live up to their promises?

Topics:

• Promoting peaceful use of civilian nuclear power
• Managing environmental and security challenges of spent nuclear fuel
• Ensuring the security of nuclear facilities
• Strengthening IAEA safeguards to prevent clandestine nuclear weaponization

Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.

Background

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was created in 1957 as the world's central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the nuclear field. It works for safe, secure and peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. It promotes peaceful, civilian uses of nuclear energy, especially for power generation, and economic and social development. It also works to stop the spread of nuclear capabilities that could lead to nuclear weapons. 

But there is a tension between these goals. Measures to encourage peaceful uses of nuclear energy often facilitate development of nuclear weapons. Measures to stop nuclear weaponization often harm peaceful civilian applications of nuclear technology. The IAEA is in the awkward position of both sharing nuclear technology and controlling its spread. Balancing these led to creation of the IAEA’s elaborate system of nuclear safeguarding.

The IAEA General Conference, simulated at °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC, is where all Member States meet. There can be sharp disagreement on which goal—promoting civilian nuclear energy versus preventing nuclear weapons proliferation—should be the organization’s highest priority. From this conflicting perspective, the IAEA deals with the world’s most sensitive nuclear policy issues, including efforts to safeguard nuclear programs in Iran, and supporting countries in nuclear crisis, like Japan after the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

With its headquarters in Vienna, the IAEA has 180 Member States, an annual budget of roughly USD 500 million and 2,500 staff.

Topics: 

• Strengthening Article Five mutual security assurances
• Making deterrence by NATO Member States credible
• NATO policy on security challenges outside Europe
• NATO membership expansion: Georgia and Ukraine

Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.

Background

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, or simply ‘the Alliance’) was established in 1949 for common defense of Europe and North America against the Soviet Union. For US it marked its first peacetime alliance. It remains vital to Western security to this day.

The cornerstone of NATO is Article Five of the Washington Treaty, which begins, ‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked…’

But for its Member States, NATO is more than an alliance. It is widely seen as a security community, bound by shared values of democracy, rule of law and individual rights, rejection of intramural war and mutual security against external threats.

With its headquarters in Brussels, NATO has 32 Member States. They meet in North Atlantic Council (NAC or the Council), the body simulated at °¼Í¹ÊÓƵMUNC. The NAC sets NATO policy on military and political goals, military spending and guidelines for military operations. The NAC operates by consensus.

Description: 

The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, became a symbol of the Cold War, dividing East and West Berlin. Its construction prevented the people of East Germany from leaving Communist rule and defecting to the West. For almost three decades, it fractured families, restricted movement, and showed the struggles for power between democracy and communism. Social, civil, and economic unrest and confusion on travel restrictions finally caused the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.

This simulation features the members of the US National Security Council navigating the extraordinary events of the fall of the Berlin Wall, events that could lead to the collapse of Communist governments and the spread of democracy, or potentially even start World War III. 

Delegates will play the major American political leaders and other experts in the US National Security Council. They must address the immediate aftermath of the Berlin Wall’s fall: instability, reunification challenges, political and social responses, and the future of Germany and the larger world. Questions on communism vs democracy, the Cold War, and security are also critical in this committee. Creativity and diplomacy will be key while balancing national interests, ideology, and global reactions.

Description: check back 

Description: check back