Royal Russell MUN Conference

On Saturday 16 October, a group of excited students gathered and embarked from Elstree and Borehamwood station for the annual Royal Russell international MUN conference.

Despite the day starting early and wet, everyone was in high spirits for the trip ahead. Upon arriving to the school campus and settling into dorms, the students began to socialize with fellow delegates before the group separated into their committees and lobbied their resolutions.

Zuhair and Kazim were chairs in the committees of SPECPOL and SOCHUM, whilst Keshav was in the prestigious Security Council. Burhan and Aaryan debated in SOCHUM, Prashant and Sachein were in SPECPOL, Anant and Fola in DISEC and Yuvi and Francisco were in their own committees of ECOFIN and Environment.

Lucas and Aarush had the major task of being advocates in the mock International Court of Justice (ICJ) representing Guatemala in their border dispute with Belize. This is a major role, with Aarush and Lucas preparing for weeks before the conference, and presenting their case to a panel of 12 student judges, presided over by a retired New York attorney who pushed all involved to make it as realistic as possible. Aarush and Lucas were delighted that they won the case on a judgement of seven to five.

As the days passed and the delegates debated hard, the conference came to an end. Keshav, Prashant and Francisco won distinguished delegate awards in their committees and the delegation of France won a Highly Commended Delegation award.

The school would like to thank Mr Cooper, Mr Gauntlett, Mr Llewellyn and Mr Ovia who made this trip possible and memorable for everyone involved.