A Letter From Secretary-General Matthew Green

To the delegates of this conference,

The Spring 2023 Model United Nations of Alaska Conference will be held from Thursday, February 23rd, to Saturday, February 25th, 2023. I am extremely grateful to welcome you all to our first in-person conference since February 2020. Just weeks before the World Health Organization (WHO) deemed the COVID-19 virus a global pandemic, we delivered our last in-person conference. Because of our bright and dedicated participants, we have been able to sustain the Model UN program through the Pandemic through virtual delivery. Since 1982, the Model United Nations of Alaska has promoted the importance of informed and collaborative international relations. I would like to thank all of this program’s amazing participants and organizers for keeping the legacy alive!

We are continuing with our theme, “The Future of Freedom: Ethnic Tensions, New Media, and the Democratization of Information.” Our most recent Fall virtual conference laid the groundwork for the dynamic and collective work that we will continue in the Spring conference. We are maintaining the same committees: Security Council (SC), Arctic Council (AC), Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII), International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and the High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) with the addition of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is an advantageous opportunity for those delegates interested in international law and the legal profession. Rather than presenting a resolution, an ICC delegate attempts to charge another nation-state/group for crimes against humanity before an international adjudicative body.

Every year, even in our virtual conferences, the Model United Nations of Alaska attracts the most promising and dedicated young leaders throughout the state. This conference's delegates exemplify the leadership and advocacy needed worldwide today. The perseverance of the MUN program here in Alaska underlines the fact that anything can happen if we believe it can. Again, I want to thank every single one of the extraordinary participants throughout the years. I encourage all of you never to let the spark that drives you to participate in these conferences fade. All the power to create the world we envision is already in us, waiting to be used. In the famous words of Alice Walker, “the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

 

Sincerely,

Matt Green