The Big Game of World Politics

The Harvard World Model United Nations (WorldMUN)

by Eva Rendle

"Arafat is dead”- This headline of the daily newspaper distributed to the participants of the United Nations simulation caused a great stir throughout all the conference rooms. Committee agendas were changed immediately, Palestine delegates asked for moments of silence. Arafat wasn’t really dead. But reactions to these fictive news were very close to reality.

The Harvard World Model United Nations is a conference that brings together over 800 students from more than 30 countries to simulate various organs of the United Nations. Its aim is to create a very realistic atmosphere of international diplomacy. This simulation project has a long tradition: Harvard University started it already in 1922; since the 1990s it has been organised in many different countries. This year in March it took place for the first time in a not- European country, in Belo Horizonte/ Brazil.

For one week students act as UN delegates in one of the UN committees discussing current global issues and following strict rules of debate. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights for example tried to find a solution to the conflict in Chechnya and human rights violations committed there. Fighting world terrorism was the number one topic for the Security Council and the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) debated about "Globalisation and Inequality”.
Participants experience not only how a big international organisation works and how difficult debates on resolution-finding can be in reality.

One important difference of this game to "real world politics” is that students do NOT represent their own countries. Taking an Egyptian position as a German for one week is one of the greatest challenges of this simulation. And that's what you learn most from: Trying to understand and to represent a position that is different from your own.

Index: Podium

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in addition to this article: Table: Different Approaches to Human Rights Education

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The big game of World Politics: The Harvard World Model United Nations
by Eva Rendle

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