UNIS-UN
Encyclopedia
The UNIS-UN Conference is organized and run by high school teacher Jean-Baptiste Bassene and high school students from the United Nations International School
(UNIS). The conference is held annually in the General Assembly
Hall of the United Nations Headquarters
. The use of the General Assembly Hall by the UNIS-UN Conference is a strong representation of the tie between the United Nations International School and the United Nations
. The conference is targeted towards the international high-school students that make up the majority of its audience. The conference is run with an invitation-only policy.
Each year, a new topic of interest and importance is chosen for the conference. The UNIS-UN Conference is designed to provide students with expert knowledge imparted by provocative guest speakers. The conference also endeavors to give students a platform to express and debate their own opinions and views. The conference has gained much fame over the years, and is commonly the first thing associated with the United Nations International School. More than six hundred students hailing from six continents attend the conference. Approximately 400 of the attending students are enrolled at UNIS. An additional 300 - 400 more students are invited from international schools around the world.
The UNIS-UN Organizing Committee is split up into several committees (Visiting Schools, Finance and Resource, Technology and Public Information & Communications, Debate, Editing, and Speakers) to ease the organization process. Visiting Schools is in charge of organizing the students visiting from abroad. Finance and Resources buys merchandise for the attendees to buy. Technology organizes any technological feats, like presentations for the speakers. PIC/PR & Communications deals with advertising the conference throughout UNIS, and Debate sorts out the student and speaker debates. Editing edits the articles for the Working Paper, and Speakers finds people to speak at the conference. Each committee is headed by one or two students (usually juniors and seniors). These committee heads make up the UNIS-UN Executive Committee; however there are a selective few students who are not the heads of the commissions, but are prominent members of the commissions.
Preparations for the conference are begun nearly a year in advance, and include finding and researching a topic of global relevance, drawing up a list of speakers, inviting several hundred students from schools all over the world, and compiling a Working Paper of articles pertaining to the topic written and edited by members of the UNIS-UN Committee. The conference is also broadcast live on the Internet, via a webstream on the UNIS-UN website.
Previous topics include Youth at Risk: The Future in Our Hands, Modern Mass Media: The Influence of Information, Global Health: Rights and Responsibilities in the 21st Century, The Role of the Corporation in Today's World, "Global Warming: Confronting the Crisis", in 2008, "The Pursuit of Energy: A Catalyst for Conflict" and in 2009 "The Food Crisis: A Global Challenge". The 2010 topic for the upcoming conference is "Bioethics
".
United Nations International School
The United Nations International School is a private international school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 by families who worked for or were associated with the United Nations. The school was founded to provide an international education, while preserving its students' diverse cultural...
(UNIS). The conference is held annually in the General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
Hall of the United Nations Headquarters
United Nations headquarters
The headquarters of the United Nations is a complex in New York City. The complex has served as the official headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1952. It is located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, on spacious grounds overlooking the East River...
. The use of the General Assembly Hall by the UNIS-UN Conference is a strong representation of the tie between the United Nations International School and the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. The conference is targeted towards the international high-school students that make up the majority of its audience. The conference is run with an invitation-only policy.
Each year, a new topic of interest and importance is chosen for the conference. The UNIS-UN Conference is designed to provide students with expert knowledge imparted by provocative guest speakers. The conference also endeavors to give students a platform to express and debate their own opinions and views. The conference has gained much fame over the years, and is commonly the first thing associated with the United Nations International School. More than six hundred students hailing from six continents attend the conference. Approximately 400 of the attending students are enrolled at UNIS. An additional 300 - 400 more students are invited from international schools around the world.
History
UNIS-UN was founded in 1976 by several UNIS students in collaboration with a tutorial house (UNIS equivalent of high school) teacher. The conference has been held in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations Headquarters every year since. The organizing committee has grown over the years (to its current number of approximately seventy).Organization
Preparations for the conference are begun nearly a year in advance, and include finding and researching a topic of global relevance, drawing up a list of speakers, inviting several hundred students from schools all over the world, and compiling a Working Paper of articles pertaining to the topic written and edited by members of the UNIS-UN Committee. The conference is also broadcast live on the Internet, via a webstream on the UNIS-UN website.
Past Conferences
Previous UNIS-UN speakers include UN Secretaries General- Ban Ki-MoonBan Ki-moonBan Ki-moon is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before going on to be Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he...
- Kofi AnnanKofi AnnanKofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
- Jan EliassonJan EliassonJan Kenneth Eliasson is a Swedish diplomat and Social Democratic politician.- Biography :Jan Eliasson was born in a working-class family in Gothenburg. He was an AFS exchange student in Indiana, United States, from 1957 to 1958 and was commissioned reserve officer after military training at the...
(President of the General Assembly of the UN) - Danny GloverDanny GloverDanny Lebern Glover is an American actor, film director, and political activist. Glover is perhaps best known for his role as Detective Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film franchise.-Early life:...
- Harry BelafonteHarry BelafonteHarold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
- Vanessa RedgraveVanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
- Morgan SpurlockMorgan SpurlockMorgan Valentine Spurlock is an American documentary filmmaker, humorist, television producer, screenwriter and journalist best known for the documentary film Super Size Me...
- Hillary Clinton
- Clay ShirkyClay ShirkyClay Shirky is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He has a joint appointment at New York University as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and Assistant Arts Professor in the New...
- Nicholas NegroponteNicholas NegroponteNicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....
- Maria Luiza Ribeiro ViottiMaria Luiza Ribeiro ViottiMaria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti is the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, as of 25 July 2007. Viotti was the President of the United Nations Security Council for the month of February 2011...
(Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations) - Marc RotenbergMarc RotenbergMarc Rotenberg is President and Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC. He teaches Information Privacy Law at Georgetown University Law Center, and testifies frequently before Congress on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues, such as access to...
- Judith DonathJudith DonathJudith Donath is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center and was the founder of the at the MIT Media Lab. She has written papers on various aspects of the Internet and its social impact, such as Internet society and community, interfaces, virtual identity issues , and other forms of collaboration...
Previous topics include Youth at Risk: The Future in Our Hands, Modern Mass Media: The Influence of Information, Global Health: Rights and Responsibilities in the 21st Century, The Role of the Corporation in Today's World, "Global Warming: Confronting the Crisis", in 2008, "The Pursuit of Energy: A Catalyst for Conflict" and in 2009 "The Food Crisis: A Global Challenge". The 2010 topic for the upcoming conference is "Bioethics
Bioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
".