03-24-2023

KU students attend Model United Nations

Formal debates, informal negotiations and the drafting and adoption of draft resolutions – the tools of the trade of diplomats at the United Nations were the focus for KU students at the Bavarian Model-United-Nations (MUN) International Conference. As part of their in-semester seminar taught by Stephan Fouquet, research associate at the Chair of International Relations, they had prepared in detail for this English-language event.

Fifteen KU students from the Master's program in International Relations participated in a simulation of the 2003 Iraq crisis from the perspective of the UN Security Council at the BayernMUN conference. They also negotiated a resolution on the outcome of the 2022 World Climate Change Conference in Egypt. Simultaneously, the students worked on an in-semester portfolio for which they, for example, empirically reconstructed actual UN negotiation processes or wrote their own strategy paper for the final conference.

The event, organized by the United Nations Society Nuremberg e.V., was held on site for the first time since the pandemic in conference rooms within Nuremberg Castle. About 50 delegations from Germany and abroad represented states in the simulation for three days. They negotiated several resolutions on "Forced Displacement Due to Climate Change," a highly topical global challenge at the intersection of migration and climate change.

At the closing ceremony, KU students received two of a total of nine awards: MIB student Nikolaus Rischbieter was awarded by the BayernMUN selection committee for his Republic of Ireland position paper. Chantel Anderson, also a student at MIB, received the Chair Award from the organizing team for her negotiation skills in the role of representing Jamaica.

Looking back, Nikolaus Rischbieter finds it "exciting but also challenging to take on the active role of a diplomat yourself and thus experience what it means in practice for a diplomat to negotiate between the interests of his own country and those of other countries in terms of international agreements." Chantel Anderson calls the Model United Nations "an excellent format to supplement my studies." She gained a lot of hands-on experience "like speaking in front of people, communicating in English, working in groups, and being able to work together on something." The MUN module will continue to be offered on a regular basis.

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