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The ÆMUN Inspired Conference 2022

The ÆMUN Inspired Conference was the first post-COVID meeting between the distinguished delegates of AIS and EIS. To emulate the deliberation undergone by the United Nations. Each of our students settled on one of three issues to discuss. There were three points of discussion revolving around the Human Rights Committee (HRC). The representatives of 16 nations each put in the research to perfectly embody their assigned country over two days of lobbying and debate. Their conclusions came in the form of properly formatted resolution documents of which 4 out of 4 were successfully passed.

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The opening ceremony featured speeches from two esteemed guests. The first was Mr. Mark Allen Brown –the Head of the HCMC Office for the UN Migration Agency. The second was an alumnus of AIS’ Class of 2021 and a Secretary-General for AUSMUN21 and International Relations student at Monash University.

Conference 1

 

The first topic, the question of gender inequality in the workplace, is number 5 of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. When it came to the topic of LGBTQ+, delegates remained extremely in character, with countries like DPRK and South Sudan expressing anti-progressive beliefs true to their real-world counterparts. The resolution that our delegates have come to was almost unanimous, with only Canada abstaining to vote whilst the rest voted for the resolution. Their documents contained suggestions that included but are not limited to urging governments to provide support to victims of gender-based harassment at the workplace and giving educational seminars to spread awareness.

Conference 2

 

The second talking point was the question of censorship and freedom of expression. Internationally, freedom of speech has been regarded as a human right. However, governments still hold the right to content from being conveyed to the public. Totalitarian countries, such as Russia, again presented a pro-censorship stance true to their counterparts. To tackle this issue, it was proposed that nations work alongside offices like the International Court of Justice to promote transparency while mitigating hate speech. There was a lot of tension when it came to exposing children to the concept of freedom of speech –would it be too much to introduce it at a young age, or is it too much of a risk to have them make potentially misinformed conclusions about it?

Conference 1

 

The final subject was the question of developing an educational basis to have equal rights to education. In the 1948 Paris UN General Assembly, it was stated that “everyone has the right to education.” The widespread prevalence of education for all is also one of the UN’s SDGs. Yet, even with rising literacy rates and educational proficiency, there is still a global educational gap where large populations of children do not have access to proper learning environments. This was not at all helped by the COVID-19 pandemic. To minimize the effects of this issue, the ÆMUN house suggested improving the training and work conditions of teachers and giving the public access to free learning resources. The biggest point of contention during this debate was the blocking of access to certain sites during school hours, as that would (according to some delegates) fall under the category of topic 2.

After witnessing the success that was this ÆMUN Inspired Conference, we look forward to more insightful discourse from our MUN team, and we look forward to those of you who decide to step up to the challenge! And don’t worry –there’ll be snacks!