ODU Model United Nations Conference (ODUMUNC) committee issue briefs are presented on each committee page below.
* Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.
Topics:
- Artificial Intelligence and control of nuclear weapons
- Maintenance of peace and security in the Strait of Hormuz
- The situation concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Protecting undersea infrastructure
Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2026.
Background:
The Security Council (SC) is the most prominent UN body, responsible for prevention and management of international crises. Its primary goal is maintenance of international peace and security. The council is dominated by its five permanent members (the P-5) with the right to veto any resolution: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and United 91¶ÌÊÓƵs. No resolution can be passed unless they all support or abstain. The other ten seats rotate with two-year terms, distributed by region. Non-permanent members do not have a veto, but contribute to majorities necessary to approve resolutions. The Presidency of the Council rotates among the members alphabetically.
Faced with an issue, the Security Council can call for a Special Representative assigned by the Secretary-General to investigate and report, or mediate. It can enact economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions. Or it can authorize states to intervene militarily with peacekeeping forces, to name but a few of its options.
The Security Council often is gridlocked due to the P-5 veto or veto threats. During the Cold War, the ideological rivalry of the United 91¶ÌÊÓƵs and the Soviet Union brought the UNSC to a standstill in all but a handful of instances. Today the United 91¶ÌÊÓƵs often uses the veto to protect unique interests, China and Russia less often.
Topics:
- Regulating AI in military operations
- Strengthening support for the Environmental Modification Convention
- Education for disarmament
- Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean
Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2026.
Background:
First Committee is the principle global forum for countries to address issues of war, armed conflict and armaments. It deals with some of the same issues as the Security Council, but works more broadly to set global disarmament priorities, policies and goals. First Committee resolutions are politically and morally binding, not legally. It can request and appeal for state action. Unlike the Security Council it cannot demand action.
As the technology of war evolves, First Committee targets global attention on the weapons and policies it thinks most dangerous and destabilizing. Some governments are convinced that nuclear disarmament is overwhelming and must come before any other action. Others want to focus on more immediate killers like landmines and cluster munitions. Some believe only threats from states are the business of the UN system, others think terrorism is equally important.
Like most UN bodies, the committee tries to work through consensus whenever possible, to insure as much international support for its recommendations as possible. But often compromise is impossible, a reality reflected in voting patterns.
Topics:
- Protecting indigenous people in voluntary isolation
- The question of Humanitarian Exceptions in UN sanction regimes
- Measures to improve the lives of women and children in rural areas
- Improving the coordination of efforts against trafficking in persons
Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2026.
Background:
Although is does not deal directly with international issues of peace and security, an observer could be forgiven for mistaking Third Committee for one of the most dangerous places in the UN. Differences among Member 91¶ÌÊÓƵs on issues of principle and national sovereignty makes its agenda visionary and controversial.
For Member 91¶ÌÊÓƵs, Committee Three deals with some of the most sensitive issues of domestic development and national sovereignty. The Committee discusses questions relating to the advancement of women, the protection of children, indigenous issues, the treatment of refugees, the promotion of fundamental freedoms through the elimination of racism and racial discrimination, and the right to self- determination. The Committee also addresses important social development questions such as issues related to youth, family, ageing, persons with disabilities, crime prevention, criminal justice, and international drug control.
Topics:
- The interests of the peoples of the Non-Self-Governing Territories
- Prohibition of the dumping of radioactive wastes
- Reparations for trans-Atlantic slavery
- International Day against Colonialism in all its forms and manifestations
Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2026.
Background:
Special Political, GA Fourth Committee, specializes in some of the most demanding issues facing the international community, issues that divide the UN's 193 member states, including disputes over state sovereignty, shared resources and rival paths of economic and social development. Unlike the Security Council, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, but the path they create influences everyone.
Issues focusing on peoples lacking national self-determination (ruled by other countries) are among the most controversial of all for the UN system. How do states adjust with rising demands of previously unrecognized or powerless groups? Do they give up territory, concede autonomy, or assert their sovereign authority? Should the UN create special structures to deal with such problems? How does the international community ameliorate the suffering of peoples caught up in rebellion and political turmoil?
Topics:
- Tracking and combatting zoonotic viruses
- Preventing the spread of waterborne diseases
- Global personnel for emergency health crisis response
- Long term solutions for Ebola epidemics
Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2026.
Background
The UN Special Session: General Conference of the Members of the UN is a momentous opportunity to reform the UN. The survival of the UN is not in doubt, but its relevance and effectiveness are.
Can the organization, created in 1945 to manage the dangers of World War Three, be adapted for the conditions and challenges of a much different world 80 years later? Delegates at ODUMUNC will consider how to make the UN better suited to global affairs in the 21st Century.
The UN faces competition. With the rise of alternatives to the UN, like the Group of 20 (G20), the BRICS (led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and regional organizations like the European Union and African Union, the world has ever more ways to address major issues. Domestic political polarization worsens the UN’s difficulties. Liberals may ask too much of it. Populists on the Right leave it with too little.
How to adapt the UN for contemporary global needs? According to the UN Charter, Article 108, the General Assembly leads changes to the UN Charter. Article 109 authorizes ‘A General Conference of the Members of the United Nations for the purpose of reviewing the present Charter’, the body simulated at ODUMUNC 49.
Topics:
- Funding the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy
- Debt restructuring and loan forgiveness for Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs)
- Acclerating progress toward universal access to old-age pensions
Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2026.
Topics:
- Removing regulatory burdens
- Deep sea mining: potential and challenges
- Pioneering AI & Emerging Technologies
- Social inclusion and the fight against hunger
Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2026.
Topics:
- Reforming the Common European Asylum System
- Gender Equality and Women's Economic Empowerment
- Restoring the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)
- Advancing European climate leadership
Some or all topics currently have interim links to relevant UN resolutions, media or websites. These will be replaced with ODUMUNC issue briefs in Autumn 2025.
Background
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, or simply ‘the Alliance’) was established in 1949 for common defense of Europe and North America against the Soviet Union. For US it marked its first peacetime alliance. It remains vital to Western security to this day.
The cornerstone of NATO is Article Five of the Washington Treaty, which begins, ‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked…’
But for its Member 91¶ÌÊÓƵs, NATO is more than an alliance. It is widely seen as a security community, bound by shared values of democracy, rule of law and individual rights, rejection of intramural war and mutual security against external threats.
With its headquarters in Brussels, NATO has 32 Member 91¶ÌÊÓƵs. They meet in North Atlantic Council (NAC or the Council), the body simulated at ODUMUNC. The NAC sets NATO policy on military and political goals, military spending and guidelines for military operations. The NAC operates by consensus.