By Addison Schwing – Staff Reporter

The Jonathan Law Model U.N. Club recently returned from New York City for the Model U.N. Conference in New York City.

Model U.N. is a club that emulates the United Nations and conducts diplomatic simulations of parliamentary proceedings to teach students about international relations and diplomacy.

Students take the role of a delegate from one of 193 countries, and conduct debates with delegates representing other countries, to establish a compromise on pending world issues. They participate annually in the Model UN conference in New York City. This year, the conference was held from March 6 to March 9.

Participants in the club have to undertake a challenging preparation phase before being able to participate in the conference in New York.  

“Participants have to write two research papers on the two topics that they may debate in their committee,” Model U.N. Club advisor Mr. Evanko said. “We also teach them the basics of parliamentary procedure, which is the protocol used in debates.”

Mr. Evanko and fellow advisor Ms. Burns advise the club and teach students the fundamentals of Model UN, but they are not the outright leaders of the club. That right is reserved for Senior Kruttika Gopal.

Gopal is the president of the club and has participated in it for all four years of high school. Her duties include organizing various fundraisers and leading the group in preparation for the conference.

This year, the Model U.N. Club represented the countries of Portugal, Monaco, Nepal, Montenegro, and Uganda. The students are divided into committees that debate on a wide variety of topics, like security, the environment, and technology. 

“I think that it was a good experience. It always is. [It’s nice to] learn to talk to people from other countries that speak different languages and have different backgrounds than the country you are representing,” junior Amelia Mower said. ” I think it went well overall.”

Mower also enjoyed the discussions and disagreements in her committee.

“My committee was the United Nations Development Programme, and we were talking about combatting gender-based violence globally, and there were definitely different views,” Mower said.  We created two resolutions, and both passed.”

Junior Rohin Manohar also participated in the conference.

“I think that the conference went great for everyone involved. It required a lot of preparation,” Manohar said. “We had to start preparing at the end of the last trip in 2018, and everyone had to write their position papers in December, but everyone worked really hard, got their papers in, and everyone went to the conference and had a great time.”

Manohar also enjoyed the debates in his committees.

“My committee was the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,” he said. “There were two topics; one was about stopping poaching and the other was about crimes on the dark web. It was really good because there were many intelligent people and we had good solutions.”

This conference is just one of many that the Model U.N. Club has participated in over the years and members hope there will continue to be many more in the future.