5th Macau Model United Nations Conference
It aims to provide an international platform for secondary school students from Macau and the region to develop their strengths, explore and analyse current affairs and international issues, broaden their international perspectives, develop their critical thinking skills, and enhance their leadership skills. It is also hoped that this event will enhance the academic and community involvement of the Model United Nations in Macao.
Committee Introduction
Cantonese Committee I (Secondary School Students’ Session)
Committee: First Committee of the Model United Nations General Assembly (Committee on Disarmament and International Security)
Topic: Cyberspace Governance: Maintaining International Peace and Security
Sub-topic 1: Establishing a framework for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace
Sub-topic 2: Regulating the development of cyber weapons and preventing cyber threats from non-state actors
Academic Adviser: Professor Guangjian Tu, Faculty of Law, University of Macau
Seating Arrangement: 25 seats, 36 delegates in total, mixed representation system
Working Language: Traditional Chinese (Cantonese)
'Everything is vague to a degree you do not realise till you have tried to make it precise.' —Bertrand Russell
With the rapid development of information and communication technology, cyberspace has become the fifth sovereign domain, following land, sea, air, and space. However, cyberspace's inherent anonymity and stateless nature have led to increasingly frequent digital friction between states.
Currently, the international community lacks a definitive consensus on what constitutes a cyber-attack and how existing international law applies to the virtual realm. Our committee will focus on how to establish the “rules of the road” for cyberspace, to prevent a conflict from escalating between nations due to a misunderstanding. The central dispute is this: do cross-border cyber-espionage or election interference constitute a de facto violation of a nation's sovereignty? And when the source of an attack is technically impossible to pinpoint with 100% certainty, does the victim nation have the right to impose economic sanctions, or even retaliate against such countermeasures?
Furthermore, how to define and protect critical infrastructure—such as power grids, hospitals, and financial systems—from state-sponsored cyber-attacks, whether in peacetime or wartime, is another pressing legal gap that needs to be filled. Beyond norms of state-to-state behaviour, the international community is also increasingly facing the grave threat of a cyber-weapons arms race and non-state actors.
Malicious code is extremely cheap to develop and replicate, making it highly susceptible to falling into the hands of hacker groups, terrorists or transnational criminal organisations. Delegates must explore establishing a mechanism similar to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to restrict the trade in zero-day vulnerabilities and the proliferation of highly destructive cyber weapons. Furthermore, the obligation for judicial assistance in transnational crime, and how developed nations can assist developing countries in enhancing their cyber-defence capabilities to plug gaps in the global security perimeter, are also crucial elements for implementing technical controls at this conference.
This conference will establish a governance feedback loop through two sub-topics: first, Topic One will set the regulatory framework, clearly defining the legal boundaries of state action; then, Topic Two will move on to implementation and response, using legal consensus to manage complex technical threats and conflicts involving non-state actors.
Cantonese Committee II
Committee: Simulation of the British House of Commons
Topic: Ten Years On: The Legacy of Brexit and the United Kingdom's Path to Revival
Academic Advisor: Professor Weiwen YIN, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau
Seating Arrangement: 30 seats; Single-member constituencies
Working Language: Traditional Chinese (Cantonese)
‘Parting is such sweet sorrow.’ —William Shakespeare
Shakespeare called parting a “sweet sorrow”, but for the British, the Brexit breakup brought a decade of political aftershocks and an economic winter. On 23 June 2016, under the then Conservative government, the UK voted to leave the European Union by 51.9% to 48.1%. On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland formally ended its 47-year membership of the EU, but it ushered in a decade of political and economic turmoil.
The promise on the bus that ‘£350 million a week more for the NHS’ has long since vanished, replaced by over 8 million people on waiting lists and citizens struggling with the cost of living crisis.
The data reflects a disheartening reality: since Brexit, the UK's GDP has lost a cumulative 6-8%, and business investment is almost 20% lower than expected. Although successive Prime Ministers have tried to fill the gap with deals like those with Japan and Australia, these agreements cannot compensate for the decline in trade with the EU.
The promise of “taking back control of our borders” from the Brexit campaign has turned into a pipe dream, with record numbers crossing the English Channel in 2025, and the Rwanda scheme being scrapped. The Labour government's “one in, one out” policy, which involves returning migrants who arrive illegally by small boat to France while taking in an equivalent number of legal asylum seekers, remains to be seen, but has also been described by the media as farcical. On the other hand, high-threshold legal immigration policies have left farms and care homes short-staffed, ultimately passing the costs on to supermarket consumers. All of these factors have contributed to a record low in voter trust for both major parties, Labour and the Conservatives.
The outlook is also bleak in terms of the judiciary and security. The repeal of the European Arrest Warrant post-Brexit means extraditing criminals takes longer; and with the UK no longer having access to the EU's real-time criminal database, sharing counter-terrorism intelligence is slower than before. Trade between the UK and the EU still faces numerous restrictions, and the UK's defence industry and its cooperation with Europe on military R&D also face challenges.
Since Brexit, the UK's political landscape has also undergone a structural collapse. The Conservative Party has had four leaders in five years and suffered a historic landslide defeat in the 2024 general election; Although the Labour Party won a majority of seats, it actually only secured just over 30% of the vote. This political climate gave the Reform Party the opportunity to rise, and its poll ratings began to significantly lead both major parties in 2025. At the same time, the Scottish National Party, citing post-Brexit issues, sought to hold a second referendum on leaving the UK, threatening the very existence of the United Kingdom.
A decade on, the House of Commons is no longer debating “how to leave” but is instead picking up the pieces left by Brexit. Data and reality have torn apart the veneer of a decade ago. More seriously, the political system seems to have lost its capacity to respond. Can Parliament, a decade on, prove its worth once more? Or will it simply witness a further deepening of divisions?
English Committee (Don Bosco Auditorium)
Committee: Model United Nation GA3, Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM)
Topic: Re-evaluating Human Rights and Dignity for Refugees in Post-Conflict Asylum Processing
Academic Advisor: Dr. Dennis Tam, Chief Supervisor of Geography and Education Research Association of Macau
Seats: 49 positions ; single delegation
"No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land. No one burns their palms under trains unless the journey is safer than the home. We must ask ourselves: are we offering refuge, or merely survival? True asylum must restore not just safety, but dignity."
— Adapted from Home by Warsan Shire
In the aftermath of conflicts that have shattered nations and scattered millions across borders, a fundamental question confronts the international community: what does it truly mean to offer asylum in an era of unprecedented displacement? Refugees fleeing war, persecution, and state collapse arrive at the doors of nations seeking not charity, but the restoration of their most basic human rights. Yet the systems designed to process their claims and integrate them into new societies often strip away the very dignity they seek to reclaim.
The statistics paint a stark picture: over 100 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced, with post-conflict refugees facing some of the longest and most uncertain asylum processes in history. Bureaucratic labyrinths stretch months into years, leaving families in limbo without the right to work, to study, or to plan beyond the confines of temporary shelters. Women and children, who constitute the majority of refugee populations, face heightened vulnerabilities to exploitation, trafficking, and abuse whilst navigating systems that too often treat them as burdens rather than bearers of rights.
The COVID-19 pandemic compounded these challenges, as border closures and overwhelmed administrative systems created additional barriers to protection. Meanwhile, rising nationalist sentiments in host countries have politicised asylum, transforming questions of human rights into contentious debates about sovereignty, security, and economic capacity. The sacred principle of non-refoulement—the cornerstone of international refugee protection—faces unprecedented pressure as states seek to externalise their obligations or deter arrivals through punitive measures.
Yet within this crisis lies a moral imperative and practical opportunity. The fragmentation of asylum systems has created space for reimagining processes that uphold human dignity whilst addressing the legitimate concerns of host communities. The question before the global community is not whether to provide protection—international law demands this—but how to transform asylum processing from a dehumanising bureaucratic exercise into a rights-based pathway that recognises refugees as agents of their own futures, capable of contributing to and enriching the societies that receive them.
The United Nations, through its founding principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention, has long affirmed that protection from persecution is not a privilege granted at the discretion of states, but a fundamental human right. The Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee stands as the primary forum within the General Assembly for addressing the protection of vulnerable populations and the promotion of human rights that transcend borders.
As delegates to this Committee, you bear a profound responsibility. Your task is to develop frameworks, mechanisms, and recommendations that will shape the asylum experiences of millions of refugees navigating post-conflict realities. The policies you craft will determine whether displaced persons are met with dignity or suspicion, whether their rights are protected or eroded, whether they are integrated as valued members of society or marginalised indefinitely in legal and social limbo.
The decisions you make will reverberate through generations—affecting not only those currently seeking asylum, but also the precedents that will govern international responses to future conflicts and crises. The path forward demands both principled conviction and pragmatic solutions, unwavering commitment to international law and sensitivity to diverse national contexts, bold advocacy for the vulnerable and genuine engagement with the concerns of host communities.
In this pivotal moment, the power to reaffirm humanity's commitment to refugee protection rests in your hands. May your deliberations be guided by compassion, your debates by respect for human dignity, and your resolutions by an unwavering recognition that those who flee conflict carry with them the same inalienable rights as every member of the human family.
Mandarin Committee
Committee: Model United Nations Security Council
Topic: The Situation in Sudan
Academic Adviser: Dr Xi Cheng, Macau University of Science and Technology
Seating Arrangement: 22 seats, 37 delegates in total; mixed representation system
Working Language: Traditional Chinese (Mandarin)
The cradle of humanity should never be overlooked by the world, yet whilst battles in Eastern Europe and the smoke of war in the Middle East repeatedly dominate international headlines, Africa has never received the attention it deserves. Here, the faint glimmer of hope seems perpetually swallowed up by the shadows of neglect, gradually fading away amidst prolonged marginalisation.
On this continent, Sudan appears to be the most ill-fated of nations. Once the gloom of the colonial era had lifted, independence did not bring peace and prosperity: two brutal civil wars tore the land apart, whilst ethnic and religious hatred took deep root like thorns, ultimately leading to the country’s division. However, secession did not bring about a new beginning; instead, it plunged both the North and the South into political and economic crises.
As Sudan’s national economy collapsed, the Bashir regime—which had ruled for nearly thirty years—was toppled by a wave of protests, after which the country became embroiled in conflict between two major factions: government forces and militias. In 2023, the Rapid Support Forces, a militia group, launched a surprise attack, and the dark clouds of civil war once again loomed over Sudan; the spectre of humanitarian disaster and genocide once more cast a shadow over the land amidst the fighting. Yet, despite the region resembling a living hell, the Sudanese people have demonstrated a deeply moving resilience. Amidst extreme chaos and displacement, they continued to yearn for life to go on, maintaining a steadfast determination to carry on and survive. The civil war also spilled over into South Sudan, which had only recently gained independence, turning the Abyei region—the subject of a territorial dispute between the two countries—into the ‘eye of the storm’, where multiple armed factions vied for control and refugees poured in.
The current situation in the Abyei region is a microcosm of this brutal civil war. As an area of crucial political and symbolic significance to both Sudan and South Sudan, it has long been mired in a political vacuum where its ultimate status remains unresolved. Although the international community has established the region’s demilitarised status, innocent civilians continue to be ruthlessly swept up in the conflict. The increasing activity of the Rapid Support Forces in northern Abyei, coupled with the military presence of the South Sudanese People’s Defence Forces in the south, has collectively undermined the region’s demilitarised status. Tens of thousands of refugees have fled their homes to seek refuge here, only to find themselves struggling under the shadow of a cholera outbreak, severe food insecurity and soaring crime rates. The United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei has become a fragile link preventing a widespread collapse of security and the protection of civilians, yet it faces unprecedented pressure amid numerous operational and logistical challenges.
Faced with complex historical grievances and the security demands of various factions, distinguished delegates, in this turbulent region where the rule of law is absent and resources are depleted, how exactly are we to break the cycle of violence, bring peace to Abyei, and help the people of Sudan achieve stability and prosperity?
