The Hague International Model United Nations THIMUN 2004

By: Sebastian Ragheb

In 2003, I began an exchange to Bremen Germany, and placed in a bilingual (English and German) school. About one month into classes I found out that my school participated in Model United Nations (MUN) conferences in Europe. I was very excited by the opportunity to make use of the skills I’d learned at INMUN and other NMUN debates in a European forum. After one or two meetings I discovered we would attend only two debates in the whole year; this was a disappointment but I resolved to do my best. The first debate was at THIMUN, a 5 day long conference at The Hague (the capital city of the Netherlands). It’s the largest MUN conference in the world.

My first shock was that we would represent the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). I had never represented a United Nations Organization (UNO) before and was caught of guard by this assignment; however, I worked hard and researched my topics. I was in the Disarmament Commission 1 (DC1) and had some in-depth topics such as The Risk of Nuclear Proliferation in the Middle East, and Towards a Nuclear Free World: the Need for a New Agenda. Many of the topics in this council involved the IAEA in many ways so I knew I would have to work extremely hard before I even arrived. The second shock I received concerned resolutions. At THIMUN everybody brings a resolution on every topic. This amazed me for two reasons, the first being that not every country’s policy agreed with the creation of a resolution on the topic(s), and the second being that in all my years of debating, I had always been told that coming to a debate with a premade resolution was bad form. So, sticking to my training, I resolved not to write a resolution (a choice which, in the long run, turned out to be not such a bad thing).

The first two days of THIMUN were interesting, as we began the week with lobbying and merging. Essentially this means we spent two days compressing about 300 resolutions into around 6-15 depending on how stubborn the delegations were or how the foreign policy blocs worked. As the IAEA, during this time I browsed about giving my “professional opinion” on all things nuclear, saying such things as “you can not make the IAEA a powerful military regime!” or “It is not in the IAEA’s scope to disarm every type of weapon world-wide” and so on (and yes, I did say both of those things). Not only did these 2 days allow us to create some very good resolutions but it also allowed me to mingle and meet with all the delegates in a free, flowing environment.

The second two days were a little more strenuous. To begin with, our conference was held in the OPCW building, (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) a secure area which required a background check, a 2 day confiscation of my passport while I had an OPCW badge and another security check every time I wanted to get in to the building. In addition, the level of debate was amazing. There were people who could convince a vegetarian to buy one hundred kilograms of beef, and the most amazing part was that English was their second language.

When you are in a room with 160 other delegates it’s hard to have your turn to speak but I was one of the few called upon frequently because of my agency’s involvement in almost every topic on the agenda. On the final day, after many wasted hours, the resolution that I had worked on the most came up for debate on the topic of a Nuclear Free World. The entire resolution was debated, amended 3 times, voted on, and was passed in 30 minutes, which was quite a spectacular feat.

On the fifth day everyone was quite tired but we still had one more day to go. On the final day of the debate all the sub-commissions are merged together to create the larger commissions. In other words I was no longer debating in DC1 but just DC. There were now over 300 debaters in one room presenting the resolutions that were passed in the sub-commissions. We debated them some more and then passed, or failed, them in the main commission. I am proud to say that my resolution passed here and the day went very well. In addition, since we had two delegates in the commission at the time, one was allowed to leave. I took the opportunity to make a small trip across the road to the International Court of Justice. While I was there, I had the remarkable chance to view the ongoing trial of Slobodan Milosevic, ex-President of Yugoslavia. It was a fascinating proceeding, and I was surprised that it was open to the public. It was interesting to see how one of the very councils that I had participated in back home functioned in real life.

The most amazing thing about THIMUN was the sheer size of it. There were 3,595 participants in total at the conference including debaters, staff, and teachers from 106 countries. As a comparison, there were almost more staff at THIMUN then we have as total participants at INMUN. It also amazed me to find out, on the last day no less, that for about 50% of the students at THIMUN, Model United Nations is a course they participate in at school. To be able to debate with those who do it for four hours a day, every day, and still excel makes me proud.

In conclusion, if you are interested in Model United Nations and you would like to have the most amazing debate experience of your life, find a way to go to THIMUN. I am thankful for my chance to attend this year, and am hoping to try and form a group to go to THIMUN next year. I hope to see many of you next year upon my return to debating in Niagara.

Return to Ambassador Online Newsletter