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11 November 2013

O-MUN (Online Model United Nations)

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One of the challenges we face as a group of students & faculty that are interested world politics is that we’re often strapped for time or otherwise pulled in different directions. What we want is to be able to participate in meaningful simulations that reflect all of the efforts of our research, but not be stuck in airports, on busses, or otherwise trapped in stuffy conference rooms. What’s the solution? O-MUN of course. O-MUN is a THUMUN partner organization who’s mission is to connect students from around the world towards meaningful collaboration and debate around the most substantive geopolitical issues of the day. Take a moment and watch this brief introductory video:

video courtesy of O-MUN

As you can see, O-MUN offers the Glopo folks here at NBPS a real opportunity to do the sort of work we want to do without having to compromise our already, often hectic, travel and extracurricular schedules. This is the point in the post where you should have already Googled “O-MUN”; allow me to provide the link for you again here: O-MUN Homepage. What you’ll find is a comprehensive set of resources for MUN research, as well as region-specific pages that articulate monthly debates on key topics in world politics: O-MUN Americas and Europe Homepage; O-MUN Americas & Europe Facebook Group; O-MUN Global Debate; O-MUN Security Council; O-MUN International Court of Justice; and more. What does an O-MUN debate look/sound like? I’m glad you asked; here’s the next demo video below:


video courtesy of O-MUN

O-MUN provides us with a forum for us to test our knowledge, claims, and skills alongside colleagues from around the world. There’s probably no other venue where we can link all of the IB Glopo syllabus topics into a single set of simulations. Participation in O-MUN can also serve as a vehicle for completing the IB Global Politics Internal Assessment (Political Engagement Activity). What are our next steps? Well first, anyone who is interested needs to complete their O-MUN Registration. Afterwards, we can start planning our coursework our time outside of class with respect to the monthly debates. As we wrap up our work in Human Rights (Year 2 folks) and a portion of the PSIR unit (Year 1 folks), many of you would be well served to think about how you can incorporate O-MUN into our studies. We can chat more about this in class in the next few days and weeks.

Upcoming O-MUN Topics
  • 28 December 2013: Increasing Women's Political Participation in Peacemaking
    • Register for O-MUN here
    • Signup for this debate here
  • 5 January 2014: TBD (UN Security Council)
  • 11 January 2014: Improving information and communication technologies for sustainable development (UN General Assembly)
    • I strongly encourage all HL2 students to participate in this. 
  • 2 March 2014: TBD (UN Security Council)
  • 8 March 2014: TBD (UN General Assembly)
  • 6 April 2014: TBD (UN Security Council)
  • 12 April 2014: TBD (UN General Assembly)
  • 4 May 2014: TBD (UN Security Council)
  • 10 May 2014: TBD (UN General Assembly)



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