Regensburg Model United Nations
– Our General Rehearsal for New York –
About RegMUN
The Regensburg Model United Nations (RegMUN) is – similar to the NMUN – a simulation conference of the United Nations, specifically the General Assembly (GA), which takes place annually at the University of Regensburg. It is organized by the United Nations Society Regensburg e.V. (UNSR e.V.), an association of students, NMUN alumni and international politics who work together to make the work of the UN understandable and to raise awareness of its importance.
By organizing the RegMUN, the UNSR e.V. gives the participants (around 50 in 2021) the chance of taking over the role of a diplomat for an entire weekend.
Preparation
Apart from organizing the entire conference (including catering, lectures of opportunity and get-togethers), the UNSR e.V. also ensures in advance that the delegates are well prepared: in November 2021, three preparatory workshops took place, in which we were not only assigned our countries but also introduced to the framework of the conference. In the first two workshops, Max Hundhammer, president of the UNSR e.V., and Christian Sigl, the faculty advisor of our NMUN delegation, taught us the course of the conference, the rules of procedure, uses of points and motions, and the drafting of position papers. The latter is a new kind of challenge, especially for the MUN newcomers among us, which is why Max Hundhammer and Christian Sigl placed special emphasis on explaining the research, formal criteria as well as the structure and content of a position paper.
Another crucial part of Model UN and real-life diplomacy is rhetoric – negotiating and giving speeches is what a (MUN) delegate will do most of the time during the conference. Therefore, the third and last workshop was all about us practicing our rhetorical skills in groups.
The Position Paper
The main objective of the position paper is to present the assigned country’s opinion on the three different topics of the conference:
1. Cyber Security and Protecting against Cyber Warfare
2. Facilitating Knowledge Transfer for Sustainable Development
3. Improving Coordination in Humanitarian Response to Natural Disasters and Other Emergencies
The entire process of writing the Position Paper was characterized by intense research and effort – especially for the NMUN-delegates, for whom this was also a crucial exercise for the New York Position Paper.
Not only for the Position Paper, but also for the entire conference, good research was and is essential. A successful and realistic representation of our assigned countries required us to know as much as possible about them, especially in terms of international politics, such as general behavior in the UN, economic and political interests, diplomatic relations, memberships in transnational organizations, cultural background, and so on.
RegMUN 2021
– Let the games begin
After all the research and getting to know our countries, we were all very excited to put our knowledge into a practical context when the RegMUN weekend finally arrived – from Friday, December 10 to Sunday, December 12, 2022.
The countries represented by our NMUN-delegation were:
Australia, Brazil, China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, France, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Venezuela
NMUN Regensburg 