Berkeley Model United Nations
BMUN · BMUN at UC Berkeley · Berkeley
Berkeley Model United Nations (BMUN) is the high-school MUN conference run by undergraduates at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1952, BMUN is the oldest continuously operating high-school MUN conference in the world. It serves as the West Coast counterpart to HMUN and is the anchor conference of the Pacific high-school circuit.
History
BMUN's first conference predated HMUN by three years and has run every year since. The organization is a registered student group at UC Berkeley with a continuous institutional memory and a strong alumni network in the Bay Area.
BMUN is also active beyond the conference itself — the org runs a year-round high-school outreach program for Bay Area schools and publishes substantive materials on procedure and committee design.
Format and committees
BMUN runs a balanced slate of GA, ECOSOC, specialized, and crisis committees. Procedure is closer to traditional UN ROP than to fast-crisis-style ROP, and the conference is known for relatively careful, paced moderated caucuses.
Background guides at BMUN are typically thorough and well-sourced. The conference tends to reward delegates who write detailed, policy-grounded position papers.
Who attends
BMUN draws strongly from California, the Pacific Northwest, and Pacific-rim international schools. International delegations from East Asia are a notable share of attendance.
The conference is invitational but accessible — many newer programs use BMUN as their first large conference.
What makes it distinct
BMUN is the West Coast reference point. If you're a California or Pacific-rim school building a competitive program, BMUN is the conference your benchmark is set against.
The conference's emphasis on traditional procedure and substantive depth makes it a good developmental venue for delegates who want to build solid GA skills before pivoting to faster crisis-heavy circuits.
How to prepare
- Treat the position paper as a serious deliverable — BMUN chairs read them and reward sourced policy reasoning.
- Practice traditional ROP (formal speakers list, moderated caucus topic motions, friendly amendments) — BMUN runs procedure straight.
- Bring physical copies of key UN documents you plan to cite.
Dates, registration, fees, committees, and background guides for the current edition live on the conference's own site. We don't mirror them — they change.
Prep with Atlas
Research your country, draft your position paper, and prep for committee.
Ask Atlas about BMUN