University Campus turns into UN Headquarters

During the simulation game “MainMUN“ almost 200 temporary diplomats, under the patronage of PRIF, simulate the work of the United Nations

 

From January 27 to 30, 2011 the Campus Westend of the Goethe University Frankfurt turns into the UN Headquarters for the seventh time. After various months of preparation, university and high school students from all over Germany and from abroad – Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Turkey – slip into the roles of diplomats. As ambassadors, they take up the position of a country assigned to them: from Tobago to the USA. The delegates aim at drafting their claims in a resolution and get it adopted with a majority.

 

During the MainMUN, 2011 four committees will be simulated, each of them dealing with a different but controversial issue. In the General Assembly one of the issues is development financing. In the Security Council the consequences of climate change for security policy will be discussed. In a ‘historical’ Security Council the situation in Kosovo of March 1999 is reconstructed. In the Economic and Social Council the political and ecological challenges in the Arctic Zone are on the agenda.

 

On Friday afternoon an additional program is offered to the delegates in order to supply more comprehensive insight in the issues discussed; on this occasion experts provide information from their experience. Two of those experts are scientists from the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt:
Dr. Elke Krahmann will speak about the control of private security and military enterprises in the General Assembly and Dr. Thorsten Gromes will discuss the situation in Kosovo in the ‘historical’ Security Council.

 

Besides, Prof. Dr. Michael Brzoska (Director of Research at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg - IFSH) and Marcel Heires (a staff member of the Institute for Political Science at the Goethe University Frankfurt) will comment the issues on the agenda in the Security Council and in the Economic and Social Council.

MainMUN is prepared, organized and implemented by 20 students of the Social Science Department at Goethe University. They are supervised by the chair for international institutions and peace research – in December 2009 Professor Tanja Brühl and her team received the Hessian university award for excellent teaching for the project “Uni goes UNO” that includes the MainMUN. The activity is also supported by the Goethe University, the United Nations Association of Germany and the Development Agency Contact of Singapore.

 

ContactMainMUN:


Charlotte Dany and Prof. Dr. Tanja Brühl

Professorship for international institutions and peace research

Phone: 0049 69/798-22878 

e-mail: c.dany @soz.uni-frankfurt .de und bruehl @soz.uni-frankfurt .de

www.mainmun.de