Eastern Michigan University’s Model United Nations club traveled to Chicago last week to participate in the American Model United Nations Conference (AMUNC). EMU brought two delegations, one representing Guatemala and the other representing Palestine.
According to the president of the Model UN club at EMU, Eric Sippert, “[Delegates] discussed and debated a wide range of issues from space exploration, to a nuclear free zone in the Middle East, to the current human rights abuses in the Central African Republic.”
Sippert was also a representative of Guatemala at the conference, a country on the UN Security Council. He said that they were given the opportunity to exercise their voting power for every resolution presented in the AMUNC Security Council.
“Furthermore, every resolution that passed was worked on and supported by Guatemala,” Sippert added.
The Palestine delegates were also able to participate in a meeting with the Security Council.
“Dana [Afana] and Andrew [Martinez] managed to get an alliance with Russia regarding our statehood issue,” said Ihsan Ghadieh, a senior in international affairs and representative of Palestine. “Russia threatened that they would veto anything when it comes to the Syrian issue unless we reach a resolution for Palestine.”
He explained that when they met with the Security Council, the main topic of discussion was the Syrian crisis and its relationship to the state of Palestine. Ghadieh said he urged the council to consider a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian issues in order to diffuse tensions in the region.
“They did such a superb job that they were given an award for their presentation to the Security Council, something that rarely, if ever, happens,” Sippert said.
Sippert explained that both teams received an Outstanding Delegation Award for their contributions to the AMUNC conference, as well as an award in the International Court of Justice.
Ghadieh felt that he and his team were one of the best-prepared delegations in the entire conference, and that added to their success.
He also mentioned that this was his first AMUNC conference and said he felt he really reaped the benefits of participating in Model UN at the conference last week.
“The conference is a great exercise for learning how international relations actually work,” Ghadieh said. “I would do it again, definitely, just because the experience was amazing.”
From here, it’s on to New York City for EMU’s Model UN club.
“The EMU Model UN team will be attending the National Model United Nations conference in New York City next semester,” Sippert said. “There we will represent Uzbekistan and Russia.”
He said that Model UN is always hosting events to raise awareness about global issues. They are always welcoming new members and invite anyone interested in participating in Model UN to come to their meetings on Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. in room G07C of Halle Library.
