USN Students Teach and Learn Diplomacy at Model UN

Thirty-one USN students made the trek to Murfreesboro to participate in the YMCA of Middle Tennessee’s Model United Nations conference, a simulation of the UN and some of its component bodies. This hands-on simulation requires students to represent countries in a diplomatic environment and discuss international issues ranging from economic development to climate change to security issues. USN students have traditionally shown leadership at this conference, and this year’s group of delegates, a combination of seasoned veterans and “noobs,” met the standards set by previous generations.

Five USN seniors led as student officers at this year's conference.  Alexandria Yu was elected to serve as a Vice President of the General Assembly with responsibility for facilitating debate on resolutions. Caroline Zhao was elected as the President of the International Court of Justice and was responsible for facilitating the argument and resolution of cases before the ICJ. Maurice Chiang and Chandler Floyd were elected as Justices of the ICJ, while Nishant Upender was elected to serve as the ICJ liason. These are tremendous honors, since these students were elected by student participants to take the responsibilities associated with these offices.

In the ICJ, seniors Sam May and Neil Zheng barreled through the arguments of a territorial dispute case between Malaysia and Indonesia to earn a spot in the ‘lightning round,’ the final case before the ICJ in which the students have only the night before to prepare their arguments before the justices. Their efforts in preparing for the conference and in the lightning round earned May and Zheng the Best Written Argument award and the Best Oral Argument award. This is the third straight award for May, and the fourth straight year that a USN lawyer team has provided the award-winning (and winning, period) lawyers in the ICJ.

In the “World Cup,” the Quiz Bowl-esque component of the conference, USN entered two teams. The A team, featuring Quiz Bowl veterans Youssef Doss and Aidan Rowan, supported by Starina D’souza and Jacob Snyder, were looking to repeat their championship performance from the Youth In Government conference this past spring. Joining them in the bracket was the B Team, which thought, ‘hey, we can do trivia too,’ and registered at the last minute. The two teams met each other in the quarterfinals, and the A team breezed through to the finals, where they met the team from perennial powerhouse Hume-Fogg.

HFA jumped to an early lead, aided by the Quiz Bowl corollary to Murphy’s Law, which states that your quiz bowl team will know all the answers to the bonus questions, but only the bonus questions asked to the opposing team. World Cup Finalist has a nice ring to it, though, and the A team is energized to defend their title at YIG this spring. The B team, not to be outdone, breezed through the consolation bracket and also finished as a finalist. Because, you know, we can do trivia, too.

In the General Assembly, international issues brought many opportunities for participation by USN delegates. Juniors Aidan Rowan and Jordan Burnett, representing Monaco, sponsored a resolution calling for a treaty conference to draw up international standards to govern the use of drone strikes. The Security Council took the opportunity to avoid ‘re-inventing the wheel’ and seized their resolution. After a spirited discussion of the matter, the SC pulled the resolution from the GA docket, put it on their docket, and passed it with flying colors. Freshmen William Bradshaw, Deviyani Bajpai, and William Gilliland, representing Venezuela, earned an Outstanding GA Resolution award for their resolution calling on the UN to bail out their country’s mis-managed oil production sector. Juniors Fidan Baycora, Starina D’souza, and Graciela Rayome, representing Turkey, presented their resolution, which was ranked second overall in the conference, earning it a spot in the final Plenary Session, an honor given to the five highest-ranked resolutions at the conference. The resolution, calling for additional financial support for refugees from the Syrian conflict, passed with flying colors.