How to choose a committee and a country

Committees are where the action happens during the day at AMUNC. If you are new to AMUNC then selecting a committee and a country can be quiet a daunting process. This guide is designed to help you make an informed decision about which committee and country best suits you.

Committees

With 15 committees on offer at AMUNC 2008 there is more choice than ever for delegates. Most delegates choose a committee that relates to their field of study at university, however it is important to know that all committees and committee topics have been designed so that anyone who has researched the topic and prepared well can participate, regardless of their academic field of study. Many delegates also choose a committee that is not related to their field of study so as to broaden their horizons.

You will notice when browsing that each committee contains a brief description of what that committee is, as well as the two topics that you will be debating during the course of the week, use these as a guide as well as the discussion of the committees that is on the forums. The Security Council (SC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are two committees that are seen to be the pinnacle of an AMUNC experience, thus delegates who wish to participate in these committees will have to submit written applications to the USG of Committees. Guidelines as to how to submit these are located on the respective pages of the SC and the ICJ.

Country

Once you have selected a committee that interests you, the next step is to choose the country that you wish to represent on that committee. Just because you're not representing the United States, United Kingdom or another of the larger "powerful" countries does not mean your contributions to the committee will not be valuable, often smaller developing nations have more at stake with the topics at hand and thus have much to contribute. Choose a country that interests you, that you either know about already or wish to research.

At AMUNC 2008 committee size will be capped at 45 delegates per committee. Delegates will have the option of choosing from all 192 member states of the UN for each committee. Once 45 member states are represented on a committee, no further delegates will be allowed. The Secretariat has decided on these options to give delegates greater choice and will result in a greater diversity of countries represented on each committee. The SC and ICJ will contain preselected member states as has happened in previous AMUNCs.

Delegations

If you are attending AMUNC as part of a delegation from your University then it is likely that the leader of your delegation will have preselected a member state for you to represent. Speak to your delegation leader and read the page on delegations for further details.