Young people tackle critical issues at Model UN

Delegates to the Model UN Conference raise their placards in support of a motion for unmoderated discussion on poverty eradication.

NEW YORK, 4 May 2002 -- Resolutions on everything from the Middle East to the environment were hammered out today, as more than 600 young people took a crack at solving some of the world's most serious problems at a Model United Nations session.

"We have a lot of good ideas about how to make the world more peaceful," says Valerie Galinsky, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School and a Model-UN veteran, who was representing the Russian Federation in a mock session of the Security Council.

Votes pour into an electronic voting board during a simulated session of the UN Summit for Sustainable Development, also known as "Rio-plus-10".

High-school and middle-school students from Denmark, Germany and New York City filled the hallways and conference rooms of the United Nations Secretariat, in mid-town New York City, for mock sessions of the Security Council, the Commission on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Earth Summit, and others.

Two of the most hotly contested issues at the Model UN -- as in the real world -- were the turmoil in the Middle East and the long-standing dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The mock Security Council passed a resolution urging both Israel and Palestine to accept a cease-fire and to resume negotiations immediately. Delegates also agreed on a resolution to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir that would allow residents to decide their fate for themselves.

Delegates follow a debate on child soldiers in a mock session of the UN Human Rights Commission.

Across the hall, at the mock Commission on Human Rights, delegates resolved to support political, economic and social measures to curb the use of child soldiers and the trafficking of girls into commercial sexual exploitation. Meanwhile, at a simulation of the upcoming "Rio-plus-10" UN Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in August in Johannesburg, South Africa, delegates achieved consensus on four declarations proposing specific measures for poverty eradication and another outlining ways to protect the atmosphere. A mock Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations debated the merits of sending peacekeepers to the Middle East. A simulated ECOSOC, involving some of the youngest delegates, considered the impact of landmines on children.

"I've learned a lot," says Leilani Alicea, a student at the Coalition School for Social Change in New York, who says this was her first Model UN. "It makes me realize how important it is to talk through and resolve problems when people disagree."

The Model UN session was the grand finale of the Global Classrooms programme in New York City. The programme, sponsored by the United Nations Association of the United States of America, aims to involve broader constituencies of young people in Model UNs by reaching out to public-school students around the United States and in a few cities in other countries.