MUN existed in the world before the United Nations (UN) was established. The first recorded MUN conference took place at the University of Oxford in 1921. Students were modelling League of Nations committees at that time as “International Assemblies”, as the United Nations was not to be founded until 1945.
Mir Mahmood, who was the first President of the first Oxford International Assembly, travelled to Harvard in 1922. The assembly held in 1923 was the first recorded Model UN in the USA. After the end of the Second World War, the International Assemblies were to be replaced by Model United Nations conferences.
The first known conference to Model UN procedure took place at Swarthmore College in 1947, which featured debates concerning nuclear weaponry, refugees and post-war reconstruction. This first conference helped lead the way for Model UN to flourish throughout the world.
In the second half of the 20th Century, the popularity of High School MUN increased dramatically, as more and more conferences began to take shape all around the world. This increase in popularity is most commonly attributed to the founding of THIMUN in 1968. The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN) Conference is one of the oldest conferences in Europe.
Comentarios