On 21st to 23rd of October 2011, the National Model United Nations DC 2011 conference took place in Washington Plaza Hotel, Washington DC. The conference has been organized by National Collegiate Conference Association in cooperation with Osgood Center for International Studies.
Six students of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, took part in this conference as honorable delegates of The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. While Antonio Cherubini and Vince Moens attended the sessions of GA 1st Committee debating on “Restricting the Flow of Small Arms”, “Nuclear Material and Non-State Actors” and the “Role of Science and Technology in the Context of International Security”, Irina Lang and Lydie Paroz discussed the issues of “Increasing Access to Technology in the Least Developed Countries”, “Addressing Issues of Corruption in Afghanistan” and “Achieving the First Millennium Development Goal: The Eradication of Poverty & Hunger” with their fellow delegates in GA 2nd Committee. Henrik Becker and Marc Sinner dealt with “The Security Situation in Afghanistan & Pakistan”, “Addressing the Situation in the Middle East” and “Combating Global Terrorism and New Threats” in NATO.
During several sessions the delegates of a committee worked hard on developing resolutions to the topics discussed always obeying some fixed rules of procedure, which are quite similar to the ones of the “real” UN. The variety of geographical, educational and social backgrounds of the participants reflected the big range of different points of view on the covered issues. Due to the limited time, of course, not all of the three topics each committee prepared for could have been addressed properly. However, there was a lot of intense and profound debate during sessions and even in the breaks and evenings.
The six delegates have trained their debating skills in weekly training sessions in Zurich for several months in advance. In preparation for the conference, they did a lot of research to get to know the issues that were discussed in their committee. An authentic and very helpful addition to that research was the visit of the Luxembourgian Embassy in Washington, DC, having an intensive talk to the ambassador Jean-Paul Senninger and his Deputy Chief of Misson, Olivier Baldauff.
After having worked hard to prepare for the conference the delegates were more than happy to be assigned a “Distinguished Delegation Award” recognizing their diplomatic efforts.
by Henrik Becker
For information on the organization of the delegation, please contact:
Vince Moens, Head Delegate
Marc Sinner, Head Delegate
