CityNews – On Friday March 21st the annual Chiang Mai, Spring, Model United Nations (MUN) conference was once again held at Payap University. The conference was well attended by students from around Chiang Mai, including Prem, Lanna, CMIS, Varee, NIS and Grace. Prem Tinsulanonda International School represented a variety of countries across the 4-committee rooms, including China, the Czech Republic, Thailand, Canada, Australia and Spain.
This year, the conference organizers, CMIS, decided to have a special theme related to the Internet. This was particularly relevant and engaging for these students as they genuinely are the first ‘Internet’ generation, growing up with the Internet and social media as an integral part of their lives. Thinking critically about the Internet and how it can be used to address inequality, fight crime or cure disease is something few of them have ever considered.
The focus for each committee was related to working out resolutions on the issues that allowed nations to take unified action as a world community.
The four committees and issues at this conference were:
ECOSOC 1 – the issue of regulating Internet currencies such as Bitcoin: to prevent these from being used by terrorist and criminal organizations, to keep them stable and viable to protect currency markets and the world economy.
ECOSOC 2- the issue of common legal standards for policing Internet crime: who has jurisdiction when a crime is committed on the Internet? How can safe haven countries be eliminated?
Human Rights 1 – the issue of how to prevent the trafficking of women and children: sexual exploitation and forced labor through the Internet, the involvement and spread of organized crime, regulating and policing the Internet.
Security Council – the issue of how to regulate the use of drones in a war zone or area of conflict to prevent the accidental deaths of civilians and the destruction of homes and buildings.
Each of these issues was first discussed in the smaller committees, where students held both formal and informal caucuses to write and debate resolutions. The successful resolutions were then taken to the General Assembly where resolutions were debated again in a larger and more challenging forum.
Our most outstanding moments of the day were:
– “Joseph winning the ‘best speech’ award in his committee” – A. Kirsty (Prem)
– “Making new friends” – Rico
– “Making Simon do my speech in the General Assembly” – Simon
– “The food” – Simon
– “I finally gave a speech in public” – Chogyal
and to sum it all up “my brain is stuffed” – Phillip.