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The Tübingen Delegation to NMUN takes preparation very seriously, in an effort to prepare for the New York conference as best as possible we held our own little simulation. Over the course of a single weekend, we honed our diplomatic skills in heated discussions, focusing on two very important topics: „Combatting the threat of terrorist attacks“ and „Xenophobia, Racism and Related Intolerances“. After hearing some well-crafted speeches, the agenda was set to discuss the issue of terrorist attacks first.
Speeches continued and soon the first informal caucuses proved useful in coming up with the very first drafts of what would later become two outstanding resolutions.
Many of the delegates present did not have prior MUN or debating experience, yet they did splendidly at adapting to the rules and rhythm that is a MUN conference.
The lunch break on our first day was also used to take the group and individual pictures of the delegates that can now be found on our website and respective social media profiles.
Soon after groups formed and went off to forage for a lunch that would sustain them throughout the rest of the first day.
As time progressed the procedures became more and more natural and everybody used their chance to give points, hold speeches or prove themselves in the informal discussions.
The delegates left the institute on the first day with a feeling of accomplishment and exhaustion and also a very promising draft for a resolution in progress.
Day two started and so did the negotiations. For some time seemingly all the delegates tried to compromise on one single paper and miraculously produced a document that everybody had agreed upon. After submission to the Chairing Dais, it was soon clear that a paper that respected all the nations represented was simply too long and entailed too many different aspects of the issue to become a working resolution. The chair’s suggestion to split the paper into two was accepted, and once again negotiations started anew.
Over the course of the second half of the day, the delegates became a little less constructive and had a little more fun playing with the intricate political relationships between certain states. Besides that, the work on the papers continued and in the end, two working papers were submitted. After some minor changes, both papers were approved as draft resolutions and the delegates entered the voting procedure.
With only two minor amendments, draft resolution one was approved to resolution one, and draft resolution two was able to be approved without any further amendments.
Thus the second day of our simulation came to a satisfying ending, with the delegates and Dias both happy about the results that had been achieved in such a short time.
The feedback was widely positive and a general consensus was found: Let’s do this again sometime soon!

Last Friday, the 31 January, was an exciting day for the 2020 delegation of Tübingen: we hosted the TMUN, our last simulation before New York. Our delegation as well as the delegations from Hohenheim and Heidelberg met in the „Alte Aula“ in Tübingen discussing the following topics:

1. The Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance
2. Measures to Strengthen International Counter-Terrorism Efforts

After a couple of Agenda Setting Speeches as well as a short informal caucaus to discuss the agenda order, the General Assembly decided to firstly deal with the second topic. Various Working Groups were formed, all dealing with the topic from different perspectives and with different focusses. Apart from that, we heard some great and substantive speeches, had fruitful debates and of course a whole lot of fun! With the HCMUN right before TMUN, we were already trained in participating in a bigger simulation with more countries. Therefore, many things such as finding the right working group that best represents the country’s interest, were a bit easier. Lastly, the GA successfully passed four resolutions. Moreover, two of our delegates got an award for „Best Speeches“ which we are very proud of. Well done, guys! 🙂

The TMUN-Team made sure that we had plenty of food in order to get all the energy we needed for having a successful simulation. They did not only offer breakfast but also a huge buffet for lunch as well as plenty of snacks and drinks. As everyone of our delegation brought something for the buffet, we had a delicious variety of all kind of foods from Mediterranean noodle salad to Romanian apple cake.

In the evening, most of the participants of TMUN had dinner in the Neckarmüller which was great due to great conversations and delicious food. It was really rewarding to enjoy dinner with a huge group of young and ambitous delegates, talking about many different topics after a whole day of hard work. The delegations of Hohenheim and Heidelberg went home afterwards. But for the Tübingen delegation the evening had even more up its sleeve…

Starting at 11pm, we had our NMUN party at the Friedrichs Club in Tübingen. What can we say – it was an awesome and unforgettable party!! The music was great, the club was nice and most importantly, the athmosphere was awesome! It was definitely a night to remember and has further strengthened our team spirit immensely.

Having in mind, that all this happened during exam period, we are even more happy to be able to mark this day as a success. It would not have been possible without the help of our volunteers – thank you so much for spending your whole day at TMUN! Furthermore, we thank the TMUN department for organising the whole event in such a professional way. Big thanks also to Lea, Savannah and Lucas who were the best dais a simulation could ask for!

Last but not least, we feel well prepared for New York now. With the semester coming to an end, we are even more aware of the huge amount of knowledge we have gained during the last few month. We are very thankful for the professional preparation we received and still receive. Compared to our first simulation at the beginning of the semester, we have improved a lot, which makes us not only confident but also even more motivated to do our very best in New York!

Preparations for New York are in full swing: the committees have been announced and the delegates have begun researching their respective topics. This weekend, our delegation was also given the opportunity to participate in the Tübingen Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Model United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and discuss the global reduction of CO2 emissions until 2050. Six of our delegates decided to take part, representing countries such as Australia, the Republic of India and the Russian Federation in the battle against climate change, and were joined by one of our head delegates, who served as co-chair. 

The conference showed that climate change continues to be a difficult topic for discussion and agreements are not easily reached. Troubles begin with the fact that not all countries equally recognize the existence of climate change and persist when debating on what actions need to be taken. Many countries seem willing to contribute to CO2 reduction, but simultaneously rely on fossil fuel energy and do not want to harm their economy. After a pizza break, many heated discussions and endless attempts to persuade the USA, we were delighted that the draft resolution our delegates mainly contributed to was adopted by the conference. And the good news continued when we learned one of our delegates had won the award for the best position paper!

Overall, Tübingen COP was a great opportunity for our delegation to gather more practical experience in speaking, debating and writing draft resolutions. With every delivered speech and completed resolution we become more confident in ourselves and feel better prepared for the big event in New York!

Our first simulation last weekend is over and left us all impressed but also very exhausted. As many of us have never participated in such a simulation before, we did not really know what to expect.

First day:

Starting on Saturday morning, we directly went into formal session, where each and everyone of us represented a country – such as Nigeria, India, Russia, Japan or Germany. Two topics were on the agenda: firstly, ‚Combatting the illicit trade on small arms and light weapons‘, secondly, ‚Capacity building in combatting climate change in developing countries‘. The Agenda Setting Speeches went quite smooth as we had already practised it before and lastly led to the decision of firstly dealing with topic 1.

Definitely more challenging was making sure to not let the speakers‘ list run out. In such a small simulation it was inevitable to be on it pretty much all the time. Although we tried our best, it unfortunately ran out two times during the simulation. For the upcoming HMUN and TMUN we are definitely going to focus on this to not let it happen again!

Apart from the formal session, we were also able to bring in motions of an informal caucus in order to write working papers. Basically, two working groups were formed and at the end of Saturdays‘ session, both groups luckily managed to hand in their first working paper. Of course, some heated debates were not missing during this process.

Apart from that, we took photos of the delegation of 2020 in our lunch break. We are going to upload them soon on our website to give you impressions of this years‘ delegates.

All in all a great and productive start for our first simulation!

Day 2:

With having some first experience from the day before, we were easily able to go on with the simulation on Sunday. We now knew, what to expect and what to improve. Not only did we feel more confident but also a lot more comfortable speaking in front of other delgates mostly without having prepared speeches. During caucus, every group was able to improve their working papers which finally led to two draft resolutions. Trying to convince other countries to vote in favor of the own draft resolution definitely was more challenging and hard work – including many debates, amendments and compromises.

Voting procedure and successfully passing even two resolutions was therefore very rewarding and made us all really proud. This was the perfect example of hard work paying off!

In conclusion, our first simulation was an awesome experience. Apart from learning a lot, we had even more fun and are looking forward to the upcoming simulations in January!