The JUNES Model United Nations conference is organized each year by the national organization of all MUN teams in Switzerland and was held this year at the university of Fribourg from 23 – 24 February 2013.
On Saturday morning, the conference started off with a welcoming ceremony briefly presenting each committee and the topics which should be discussed.
During the first session, each delegate should present his or her ideas concerning the topic in a 2-minute-speech. We had never practised longer speeches at ETH MUN, but the position paper, everyone had to write before the conference, was a good base to build on.
As the committees were of a smaller size every delegate had many opportunities to speak during formal debate, which followed the first introductory speeches. As there were only six sessions of two hours spread through both days, the debate had to progress quickly and working papers had to evolve into draft resolutions early enough to allow discussion and amendments.
Luckily, at ETH MUN, members are familiar with the ways to write a draft resolution. This also allowed new members to participate actively at the writing process as well as the discussion afterwards. Thus, the weekly practise sessions provide a very good base to participate actively at conferences without having to worry too much about the rules of procedure.
Even though not all committees could pass a final resolution, everybody confirmed interesting debates lead at a high level.
One also had the chance to get to know the other delegates during the different breaks in between sessions, as well as the social events proposed by the conference.
Finally, one of our delegates, who participated at the Historical Security Council, won a best-delegate award which concluded an interesting and enjoyable MUN conference.