You’re Guide To

MUNS!
 The United Nations is an international organization
founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51
countries committed to maintaining international peace
and security, developing friendly relations
among nations and promoting social progress, better
living standards and human rights.

• Current Secretary General - António Guterres of Portugal.

Current Indian representative -Asoke Kumar Mukerji

• The main function of the United Nations is to preserve

international peace and security. It also includes pacific
settlement of disputes, through the intervention of the
Security Council, by means such as negotiation, mediation,
arbitration, and judicial decisions.

What are MUNs?

◦ Model United Nations is an academic simulation of the United

Nations where students play the role of delegates from
different countries and attempt to solve real world issues with
the policies and perspectives of their assigned country.

◦ Once a team has registered for a conference, it receives a

country to represent.

MUN spread awareness about the current global issues that are
happening in the world to the young generation making them
familiar of the daily problems that the world faces and also
allows students to come about with solutions for them in turn
making them as wonderful citizens as they grow up.
 What happens in a MUN?

1. People involved in a MUN:

Delegates- the forum consists of a set of people, who will

participate, vote and discuss in bringing up a resolution for
the agenda. These people represent each country and must
be thorough in that country’s foreign policies. Whatever
discussion they make they should make sure that they
support the committee and the country that they are
representing and do not go against them.

Chair- the chair is a person, who goes through the

procedures of the MUN, helps in maintaining decorum
and moderates the debate. The chair tells when a
delegate can speak.

Secretary- a person who is like an assistant to the chair.

They keep track of time, clauses and the speakers list
and anything else that the chair needs help with. They
sometimes also help in the taking of roll call. Also known
as a co-chair. Sometimes they are responsible for all the
committees functioning in a MUN camp. In real life they
are known as the president of the UN and do not
interfere much into the meetings unless there is a
dispute between the delegates and the chair.

2. Process:
(i) To open the committee session the chair calls the
session to order. (the way the order in court)
(ii) Then the Chair or the Secretary passes a motion for open
debate with help of voting
(iii) Now comes the Roll Call- when your delegation country
is called you may answer “present and voting” or just
“present”. Present means you can vote yay, nay or
abstain but present and voting means you can only vote
yay or nay and cannot abstain.
(iv) A delegate can opt for a speaker’s list. The chairasks the
delegates if they would like to be added to the list and
time their speaking. It is just a more formal way of
debate and the list helps to go in order when speaking
for a topic. The speaker’s list can be closed at any
moment.
(v) Agenda setting- the motion to set the agenda will be
done by the chair (chair will ask a delegate or delegate
can volunteer to present the motion) all those in favour
and those opposed is taken and by order the agenda for
MUN is set to discuss on. Sometimes there can be more
than 1 agenda topic so a vote is taken again on which is
to be debated on first and then the next topic follows.
(vi) Moderated Caucus- a delegate may give his/her opinion
once the agenda is set to open another speaker’s list or
to create a more formal kind of debate called the
moderated caucus. The moderated caucus is a formal
kind of brainstorming session based on the agenda that
will be done with total and speaking time of maximum
10mins and 1 min respectively. The delegates can favour
or oppose to have a moderated caucus and based on the
majority votes the session starts. A Moderated caucus
helps to basically discuss the sub topics of the main
agenda. For example if the agenda for the day is on
environmental sustainability then the moderated caucus
would deal with the current pressing issues like rise in
 global temperature, sea levels etc. This subtopic is again
selected on the basis of those who favour and oppose
depending on how disruptive it for the council and the
moderated caucus begins.
There are 2 rules-
Order of Disruptive- a moderated caucus before an
Unmoderated caucus is always voted.
Order of Precedence- when a caucus with longer
duration is voted upon before one with shorter duration
(vii) Unmoderated Caucus- this is a striking contrast to the
moderated caucus and is more disruptive for the
meeting. This is usually done like a run through after
moderated caucus. It is where delegates can get up and
moves around, discuss their ideas with other delegates,
draft resolutions, use the restroom etc.
(viii) Introducing a draft resolution- a resolution in order to be
presented must have enough signatories and other
sponsors to support it. The delegates can as for the
review of the resolution followed by a 1-2 min speech by
all the delegates regarding the same. The country
presenting the resolution will have to read it aloud to
the committee. There should be at least an equal
number of sponsors and signatories (these will be the
delegates split up in a 50-50 basis or in any ratio) for the
resolution to be presented.
(ix) An amendment to the resolution- Once a resolution is
being presented the draft undergoes changes or
amendments to it in order to make the resolution
suitable to pass in favour of all the countries present.
The delegates can vote for a moderated or Unmoderated
caucus to discuss the changes in the draft. When a
 change is in favour of the author of the draft (the
country that presents the resolution) the amendment
passes with full majority favouring it making it a friendly
amendment, when the change is not in favour or
interests of the author of the draft then it is known as an
unfriendly amendment and is further discussed and
voted, if there is a majority for the change the draft gets
amended if not the change is not included in the draft.
Incase if the author is still not pleased with the change
even after getting a majority vote for it they can either
withdraw their resolution or they can discuss about it
with other states present, debate about its necessity for
its inclusion in the resolution through a moderated or
Un-moderated caucus.
(x) Voting Procedure- the voting procedure is basically the
delegates voting based on the resolution. A delegate can
vote ‘Yay’ ‘Nay’ or ‘Abstain’ for the resolution depending
on what they suggested in the roll call “Present” or
“Present and Voting”. Also in a voting procedure there
can be more than 1 resolution to be voted for so the
delegate who is motioning for the procedure has to
specify which resolution they would like to vote for first,
or if they want to vote for all resolutions or if there is a
specific order to vote for the resolution. You can even
add a 2 for 2 for or against the resolution which means
the number of delegates divided by 2, first half will vote
“Yay” and the 2nd will vote “Nay” and will debate for or
against the resolution respectively. Once debated the
voting procedure starts. Usually voting procedure go by
raising the pluck card of the delegates to see people in
favour or against but if a delegate insists to go via roll
 call procedure, the chair calls out each and every
delegate to ask for their vote.
(xi) Pausing the debate- when a delegate feels the
committee has been working for too long and requires a
break or lunch then he/she can motion to suspend
debate until next committee session so that the
committee can continue the same topic with the same
council after a break. Again this is passed with a favour
of majority votes.
(xii) Tabling the Agenda- In case there is a lot being spoken
regarding the topic and wants to move onto the next
agenda topic you can motion to end the debate for the
current topic and move onto the next agenda topic.
(xiii) Ending or adjourning a committee- suppose the
Committee has covered all its agendas or if there is still a
lot to cover and time is running the committee can be
ended or adjourned to be resumed from where it is
ended on a specific day. A delegate can motion the
adjourning of the committee and depending on those
who favour or oppose the committee will be adjourned
for the day until the next MUN.

3. Terms related to MUN:

a) Abstain- abstain is like a NOTA option where you don’t
vote Yay or Nay for the resolution. Your abstaining the
resolution doesn’t affect the resolution from passing.
b) “Yielding the Time” means once you are done speaking and
you have extra time left you need to give away the time.
You can either “yield the time to the chair” to continue
with the MUN procedures or you can “Yield to a delegate
who is an ally of your country” or you can “Yield it for open
 questions” based on your speech (yielding time applies for
all the procedures of the MUN).
c) Points- these are known as points as they do not instruct
something to be done in the committee and are just asked
like clarifications regarding the MUN. these are of 3 types-
Point of inquiry: It is an enquiry about the MUN
procedures or about the topic that is being addressed
etc. they are more or less doubts that are asked by the
delegates to the chair like how much time is left for the
session etc.
Point of personal privilege - this is asked by the delegate
to the chair based on personal enquiries like use of
restroom, opening a window or permission to speak
later.
Point of Information- This is to know about some
information regarding the committee, it is like a doubt
raised by the delegate to the chair or secretary based on
the agenda being discussed.
Point of Order- It is raised by the delegate when he/she
feel there is a mistake in the committee procedure order
and need correction.
d) Right of Reply- when a delegate feels the opposition of
another country’s delegate in speech (speaking against the
country) that delegate has the right to reply for the
acquisition and can speak to that delegate personally
regarding your country and have all the right to defend
your nation. This is granted by the chair.
4. Committees present in an MUN
The committees present in an MUN vary from school-school.
Some of the common committees’ are-
UNSC- United Nations Securities Council
 UNHRC- United Nations Human Rights Council
ECOSOC- Economic and Social Council
SOCHUM- Social Humanitarian and Cultural Committee
HSC- Historical Security Council
WTO- World Trade Organisation
UNODC- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
DISEC- Disarmament and International Security Council
UNCOPUOS- United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of
Outer Space
IFAD- International Fund for Agricultural Development
International Telecommunication Union
UNFCOC- United Nations Convention on Climate Change
United Nations General Assembly
Lok Sabha
UNCSW- United Nations Council on status of women
Rajya Sabha
International Press
International Court of Justice
African Union
European Union
Srilankan Committee and much more.

Resolution Summary:

1. Pre-ambulatory clauses should end only with a comma

2. Operative clauses end only with semicolon
3. Different words are used regarding the starting of each clause
4. ONE point of order will ensure your resolution fails
5. Anyone can be the signatory of the resolution - signatory means
that you as a country recognise the existence of a resolution
6. Sponsors will have to EXPLAIN the resolution, each and every
clause
7. Two types of amendments:
A. Friendly amendment - the amendment that you allow (ask chair
if there is a limit to the number)
B. Unfriendly - ones that you reject - there is a limit, ask your chair
during session

i. Addition - you add a clause

ii. Deletion - delete a clause
iii. Amendment - you phrase things differently

8. You CANNOT work on the resolution before committee; only

after the first day can you start working on the resolution

9. You can recognise past UN resolution in your resolution