Well met in Cambridge: LSE takes CUIMUN 2016
Written by: Janet Wong
On the 4th of November, our team of 8 delegates braved the cold to join the 22nd edition of the prestigious Cambridge University International MUN (CuiMUN). After three days of blood, toil, sweat and tears, of resolution writing by day and drinking enough by night to make sure we wake up hungover the next morning, Team LSE is proud to be bringing home from Hogwarts a handful of individual awards and the wonderful honour of being named Best Small Delegation (vive la France) in the conference. Kind of like winning tri-wizard tournament, right? While our hearts swell with pride for what we have achieved as a team and for our team, we are even more grateful that the conference brought us closer together.
Paralleled with our pumped and eager hearts for the first day of conference, our delegates all showed up in flashy red tones-- the LSE team colour for the opening ceremony, in which we had the pleasure of listening to guest speakers share their insights on promoting gender equality. Soon as the ceremony was over, our delegates parted ways to firstly, attempt to find the correct rooms for our respective committees and secondly, to wholeheartedly delve into the topics set for debate. Given the enormity of the venue that is Cambridge University- let's just say that the first task is as hard as the second one.
The committee themselves offer a wide variety of topics for discourse and discussion, hence the experience in every committee truly unique in its own way. However, what all of us can agree on, without hesitation, is that they are all made up of passionate and interesting delegates which made the committee sessions all the more challenging and fulfilling. Our delegation represented the French Republic, with the exception of Catherine Fu who spoke on Egypt's behalf on the two paramount issues of access to female sanitary products and female participation in the military, and Viktor M. Salenius who was Egypt in the African Union, where he led a bloc of countries in debating away on the issue of the Great Green Wall Initiative. Viktor was later joined by Alex Selway and his committee, the European Council, to discuss a joint topic of refugees and asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean Sea after Alex, as France, tackled the complex issue of Brexit in EC.
In SOCHUM, Christie Deng pushed forward a resolution which withstood the trials of scrutiny on the debate floor, and ended up earning majority approval. Johnathan Lin debated fervently on behalf of France in the advanced and highly technical committee of Interpol. As one of the P5 countries in the ever-competitive UNSC, Kristina Lau held her ground and made the delegation proud by embodying the true spirit of diplomacy. Horatio Lyons had the exciting and unconventional task of discussing the historic issue of Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in the Emergency GA, where he negotiated with the Soviets for a peaceful retreat. In DISEC, where 70 countries came together to talk about biological weapons and definitions for terrorism, we in the end successfully passed a France-sponsored resolution despite the initial differences and skepticism individual countries hold towards the resolution.
We must also thank our head delegate, Ralph Chow, who on top of chairing the EC committee in the conference, had to coordinate the trip to Cambridge and worry about our conduct/ punctuality/ wellbeing along the way. We also thank other members of our delegation who are on the chairing team for making CuiMUN a great conference.
Please see our list of awardees and chairs in CuiMUN 2016:
Team LSE- Best Small Delegation
Awardees
1. Janet Wong, Best Delegate (DISEC)
2. Christie Deng, Best Delegate (SOCHUM)
3. Viktor M. Salenius, Distinguished Delegate (African Union)
4. Alex Selway, Distinguished Delegate (European Council)
5. Kristina Lau, Verbal Commendation (UNSC)
6. Horatio Lyons, Verbal Commendation (Emergency GA)
Chairs
1. Stefano Obata, Director (African Union)
2. Sam Povey, Director (Emergency GA)
3. Yeva Agayan, Director (UNSC)
4. Ralph Chow, Assistant Director (European Council)
Last but not least, we would like to thank our team supervisor, Tim Aspin for his help during the conference.