UN Security Council (UNSC)
Topic 1: Supporting Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Description: With the hopeful return to the JCPOA between Iran and other states, we must discuss the furthering of Nuclear non-proliferation worldwide. Furthermore, with the increased militarization of many nuclear holders, there must be an active discussion to reduce the world’s current stockpile of almost 14’000 nuclear warheads. The General Assembly’s treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has also as of 2021 gained enough signatories to be effective, therefore a discussion of this scale and magnitude is owed to the international community through the UN, and it lies to the United Nations Security Council to take this further, and bring further assurances to the non-proliferation of these destructive weapons.
Topic 2: Improving UN Peacekeeping in Conflict Zones
Description: The Blue Helmets are one of the most important forces in maintaining global peace, especially when combined with the range of efforts the UNSC can do to maintain global stability and peace. However, reforms are always required. Ever since their inception in the Suez, UN peacekeeping forces have undergone a range of reforms designed to make them more effective, more suitable, and more successful in their actions. With Secretary-General Guterres’s proposed reforms in 2017, how shall the UNSC react to some of the needs that modern day peacekeeping provides?
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
Topic 1: Promoting LGBTQ+ Rights Worldwide
Description: Still to this day some UN Member States have laws that criminalize homosexuality and “non-traditional” approaches to gender and sexuality, which can endanger the rights of LGBTQ+ citizens across the world. Whilst it is important to keep cultural understandings prevalent, more can be done on a global level to alleviate the struggles of LGBTQ+ people, and make sure that their rights, as enshrined in the UN Human Rights Declaration, are protected and promoted.
Topic 2: Protecting the Rights of Indigenous People
Description: Many shocking events of recent years have unveiled just how much the crumpling of indigenous rights has pervaded many countries for centuries. Even in our modern day, the rights of these people to their homeland and livelihood is threatened, and must be protected with special rights borne from the difficult circumstance and history that has not been on their side. Armed with a renewed understanding of cultural and spiritual property, we must make sure that Indigenous people’s rights are protected even more so, and enshrined in local and national legislation.
UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
Topic 1: Financing Efforts to Improve Sustainable Development Efforts
Description: Moving the world towards sustainable development is no easy task. It will require political will and funding the likes of which few challenges have faced before. Therefore, in order to help those that need further funding, we must debate and implement new ways to improve financing of efforts relating to the SDGs. The SDG Fund, now closed, is but one example, but what more effective and long-standing methods can we use to support this further?
Topic 2: Enhancing the coordination of humanitarian aid to post-conflict zones
Description: Total humanitarian aid given worldwide from private and public sources nearly tops $30 billion annually. However, with such a huge amount of money given, coordination becomes one of the key difficulties to address. Competing humanitarian aid groups are a frequent feature of life for many overseas organisations, and this reduces the effectiveness and ability of aid to get to where it needs to most. And one are it needs to reach is post-conflict zones, often beset with tense political and economic situations that continue to damage the ability of aid to reach its intended target. ECOSOC must therefore look for a way to address this, taking into account the benefits of all countries in supplying humanitarian aid to post-conflict zones.
UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Topic 1: Improving Female access to education
Description: Worldwide, over 130 million girls cannot get proper access to education, and women of all ages globally face descrimination in adult forms of education, and access across primary, secondary, and tertiary systems. UNESCO, as the main body dealing with wider issues of education, has a remit and a possibility to extend global access to education for girls and women. To do this, new programs and encouragement must be given, following the huge rise in access that the past few decades have brought. However, there continues to be political, economic, and social challenges to overcome, which international cooperation can help solve.
Topic 2: Restitution of Cultural Property to Countries of Origin
Description: Many museums and private collections are beginning to take a renewed understanding of their often colonial origins. Of these, famous examples exist that tie native artefacts and cultural property to conquest or otherwise controversial manners of ownership that it can be argued has some merit to rectify in the 21st century. As directors and collectors across the world begin to understand this, a wider debate on cultural restitution should be had at the international level, seeking to create a framework and template for such return of property good for both countries in which museums are being pressured to return artifacts are from, and the countries asking for such restitution.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Topic 1: Combating Disinformation on NATOs Borders
Description: Threats are no longer confined to the theatre of war or battles anymore. In modern times, a new threat of disinformation has posed significant challenges for all Allies of NATO. Often this threat comes from difficult to identify sources, hackers, bots, state entities, yet they all share the same goal of undermining our population’s ability to respond and internal cohesion. If this becomes successful, then we may lose a war before any battle is even fought. NATO has worked on this for many years, however, and it is time that at the top level we discuss these solutions, and allow us to remain resilient in the face of new weapons of war.
Topic 2: Strengthening Resilience to Hybrid Threats
Description: Air, Land, and Water are often seen to be traditional fields of combat, yet new areas of cyber and space, alongside rapid digital threats, lead to a myriad of hybrid threats to emerge. In tackling these hybrid threats NATO can do much, and has already embarked upon many initiatives to strengthen its resilience. The question now is how can it go further, to make sure it is not just handling these threats but responding actively, and ready for the future, where AI and new technologies not yet implemented could cause more threats to the Alliance.
