What is the eligibility level for participants in this competition?

This championship is specifically designed for high-school level students, providing a unique opportunity for young individuals to engage with the legal system.

Where will the 2026 National High School Mock Trial Championship be held?

The event will take place in the city of Des Moines, USA.

What is the format of the competition?

The competition involves simulated courtroom trials, where high school students assume the roles of attorneys and witnesses.

2026 National High School Mock Trial Championship

May 7–9, 2026Des Moines, United StatesIn-person

ConcludedRegistration closed

The National High School Mock Trial Championship is an annual competition bringing together high school students from across the USA to compete in simulated courtroom trials. Participants develop critical thinking, public speaking, and legal reasoning skills as they take on roles of attorneys and witnesses. The event fosters an understanding of the legal system and promotes civics education among young people. Hosted in Des Moines, USA, the championship provides a platform for students to engage with legal professionals and peers, enhancing their educational experience beyond the classroom. The competition emphasizes both individual performance and teamwork, preparing students for future academic and professional pursuits in law and related fields.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the dominant committee topic. Click through for the full country profile.

United States

The USA is the host nation for this high school mock trial championship, underscoring its commitment to legal education and civic engagement among youth.

Role in topic

As the host country, the USA provides the venue and organizational framework for this national competition. Its legal system serves as the model for the mock trials, and the event reflects the USA's emphasis on fostering legal literacy and critical thinking skills in its high school population. The competition draws participants from across the nation, showcasing diverse interpretations and applications of legal principles within a unified framework.

Topics & background

The history behind each committee topic and the states that shape it.

Strengthening International Cooperation in Counter-Terrorism Efforts

International counter-terrorism cooperation has evolved substantially since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001), which obliged all states to criminalize terrorist financing, freeze assets, and share intelligence. The 2006 UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, reviewed biennially by the General Assembly, established a four-pillar framework addressing conditions conducive to terrorism, prevention, capacity building, and human rights. Subsequent instruments — including the creation of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) in 2017 and the work of CTED and the 1267/1989/2253 ISIL & Al-Qaida sanctions regime — have built a dense but fragmented architecture. The core dispute concerns the absence of a universally agreed definition of terrorism, which has stalled the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism since 1996. States disagree over whether national liberation movements, state actors, and acts under foreign occupation fall within the definition. Tensions also persist over information-sharing, extradition under the aut dedere aut judicare principle, and the human rights implications of designation lists and travel bans. Today, the threat landscape has diversified: the territorial defeat of ISIL has been followed by the resurgence of affiliates in the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, and Afghanistan under the Taliban; far-right and racially motivated violent extremism has grown transnationally; and the use of cryptocurrencies, drones, and online radicalization complicates enforcement. Delegates must weigh stronger multilateral coordination against sovereignty concerns and the protection of fundamental freedoms.

Key players

Women, Disarmament, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control

The intersection of gender and disarmament gained formal recognition through Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security, and was reinforced by the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty, which became the first legally binding instrument to require states to assess the risk of gender-based violence when authorizing arms transfers. The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) explicitly acknowledged the disproportionate impact of ionizing radiation on women and girls, marking a normative shift in disarmament discourse. The core issues are twofold: gendered impacts of weapons (small arms, explosive remnants, nuclear fallout, and conflict-related sexual violence facilitated by arms availability) and gender parity in disarmament diplomacy itself. Studies by UNIDIR and UNODA have documented that women remain underrepresented in arms control negotiations, with female participation in NPT Review Conferences historically below one-third. General Assembly Resolution 65/69 and successor resolutions urge states to promote women's equal participation in disarmament decision-making. Current debates focus on operationalizing gender provisions in the ATT, integrating gender perspectives into NPT and BWC review cycles, addressing the gendered dimensions of emerging technologies such as autonomous weapons, and ensuring that disarmament programs — including DDR and weapons destruction — meet the distinct needs of women survivors and combatants.

Key players

Promoting Sustainable Transport for the Achievement of the 2030 Agenda

Transport accounts for roughly one-quarter of global energy-related CO2 emissions and is the only major sector where emissions have continued to rise in most regions. Sustainable transport cuts across at least eight of the Sustainable Development Goals, touching health (SDG 3), infrastructure (SDG 9), cities (SDG 11), and climate (SDG 13). The first-ever Global Sustainable Transport Conference, held in Ashgabat in 2016, and its successor in Beijing in 2021, framed transport as essential connective tissue for the 2030 Agenda. The central tensions involve financing — particularly for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS) that face disproportionate logistics costs — and the decarbonization pathway. Developing states stress common but differentiated responsibilities, arguing they need affordable access to motorization and aviation before being asked to leapfrog to electric or hydrogen-based systems. Developed states emphasize stricter IMO and ICAO emissions standards, including the IMO 2023 GHG Strategy targeting net-zero shipping by around 2050 and ICAO's CORSIA scheme for aviation. Today, debate centers on electric vehicle mineral supply chains, urban public transit investment, road safety (the Decade of Action 2021-2030 aims to halve traffic deaths), and trade facilitation along corridors such as the Belt and Road and the EU's Global Gateway. The 2026 midterm review of the 2030 Agenda raises the urgency of accelerating progress.

Key players

Strengthening Global Supply Chains to Promote Food Security

Global food security has been buffeted by overlapping shocks: COVID-19 logistics disruptions, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which choked Black Sea grain and fertilizer flows, climate-driven harvest failures, and rising protectionism through export bans. The FAO Food Price Index reached an all-time high in March 2022, and although prices have since moderated, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report estimates that 733 million people faced hunger in 2023. The Black Sea Grain Initiative (2022-2023), brokered by Turkey and the UN, briefly restored Ukrainian exports before Russia withdrew. The core dispute concerns the resilience-versus-efficiency trade-off in just-in-time global agri-food chains. Net food-importing developing countries — particularly in Africa and the Middle East — argue for buffer stocks, regional integration, and reform of WTO Agreement on Agriculture rules that constrain public stockholding. Major exporters resist disciplines on export restrictions, citing food sovereignty. Fertilizer concentration (with Russia, Belarus, Morocco, and China dominating key nutrients) is a parallel choke point. Current diplomacy focuses on the WTO MC13 outcomes on agriculture, the UN Food Systems Summit +2 stocktake, AU efforts to scale the African Continental Free Trade Area for agri-food trade, and Gulf state investments in foreign farmland. Climate adaptation and digital traceability are emerging priorities.

Key players

Protecting the Freedom of Religion or Belief

Freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) is enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, covering the freedom to have, change, manifest, or not hold a religion. The 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief and the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on FoRB (created in 1986) form the backbone of the international framework. The General Assembly's annual resolution on combating intolerance (16/18, originating in 2011) marked a consensus departure from the earlier, contested 'defamation of religions' resolutions promoted by the OIC. The core tensions involve the boundary between protecting believers and protecting beliefs from criticism, the rights of religious minorities and converts, blasphemy and apostasy laws, restrictions on religious dress and education, and rising state-sponsored persecution. Pew Research and USCIRF consistently document high or very high government restrictions on religion across roughly a quarter of countries, including Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Christians in parts of the Sahel and South Asia, and Baha'is in Iran. Contemporary debates address online hate speech and the application of the Rabat Plan of Action, the protection of places of worship following attacks in Christchurch, Pittsburgh, and Sri Lanka, and antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred. The International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, launched in 2020, has expanded as a coalition outside the UN framework.

Key players

Promoting the Rights of Women and Girls in the Aftermath of Conflict

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda was launched by UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000 and has since been elaborated through nine follow-on resolutions, including 1820 (2008) recognizing conflict-related sexual violence as a tactic of war, and 2467 (2019) on a survivor-centered approach. Post-conflict environments magnify pre-existing inequalities: women face heightened risks of sexual and gender-based violence, displacement, loss of livelihoods, and exclusion from peace negotiations and transitional justice processes. UN Women data show that women remain a small minority of negotiators and signatories in major peace processes. The core disputes involve accountability for wartime sexual violence — including in Tigray, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, and the eastern DRC — the design of reparations programs, women's political representation in transitional governments, and the rollback of women's rights in contexts such as Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021, where girls have been barred from secondary and higher education. Funding gender-responsive peacebuilding remains persistently below targets set in the Secretary-General's WPS reports. Current priorities include the 25-year review of Resolution 1325, scaling National Action Plans (now adopted by over 100 states), integrating gender into DDR and security sector reform, and ensuring that climate and displacement responses in post-conflict zones address women's specific needs.

Key players

Full and Productive Employment and Decent Work for All

Sustainable Development Goal 8 commits states to 'promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.' Its intellectual roots lie in the ILO's 1999 Decent Work Agenda — productive employment, rights at work, social protection, and social dialogue — and the 2008 Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization. The ILO Centenary Declaration (2019) reaffirmed these pillars in the face of automation, demographic shifts, and informality. The central challenges are persistent and uneven. The ILO estimates global unemployment at around 5 percent but with vast underemployment, a youth unemployment rate roughly three times the adult rate, and roughly 2 billion workers in informal employment. Women's labor force participation lags men's by about 25 percentage points globally. The COVID-19 pandemic erased the equivalent of hundreds of millions of full-time jobs, and recovery has been uneven, with developing economies bearing lasting scars. Platform and gig work raise new questions about employment classification, collective bargaining, and algorithmic management. Current debates focus on the just transition to a low-carbon economy (potentially shifting tens of millions of jobs), AI's impact on white- and blue-collar work, the universalization of social protection floors (only roughly half the world is covered), and supply-chain due diligence laws addressing forced and child labor, which the ILO estimates affect 28 million and 160 million people respectively.

Key players

Inclusive Rural and Agricultural Development

Roughly 43 percent of the world's population lives in rural areas, and the majority of people living in extreme poverty depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Smallholder farmers — operating on less than two hectares — produce roughly a third of global food. Yet rural areas lag urban counterparts on virtually every development indicator: access to electricity, water and sanitation, finance, education, and health. SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 1 (No Poverty) cannot be met without targeted rural and agricultural strategies, a point emphasized in the FAO, IFAD, and WFP's annual State of Food Security reports and the UN Decade of Family Farming (2019-2028). Key disputes concern land tenure security, particularly for women, indigenous peoples, and pastoralists; subsidies and market access under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture; the role of agribusiness consolidation versus agroecology; and adaptation finance for climate-vulnerable farmers facing droughts, floods, and shifting growing seasons. The Voluntary Guidelines on Tenure (2012) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (2018) set normative benchmarks but lack binding force. Today, debate centers on scaling climate-smart agriculture, expanding rural digital connectivity and financial inclusion, addressing rural-urban migration and youth disengagement from farming, and aligning the African Union's CAADP commitment (10 percent of public spending to agriculture) with the AfCFTA. The 2026 SDG midterm review underscores how badly rural progress is off track.

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before 2026 National High School Mock Trial Championship, plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

Arms Control Verification 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee Agricultural Revolution Article 25 — Freedom of Conscience and Free Profession of Religion ATT Extraterritorial Controls Armed Conflict, Non-International

In the news

Recent reporting to ground your prep

India's 131st Amendment Bill

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Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

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Supreme Court's Voting Rights Impact on 2026

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India's Women's Quota Bill Fails

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Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

2026 National High School Mock Trial Championship

May 7–9, 2026Des Moines, United StatesIn-person

ConcludedRegistration closed

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the dominant committee topic. Click through for the full country profile.

United States

The USA is the host nation for this high school mock trial championship, underscoring its commitment to legal education and civic engagement among youth.

Role in topic

Topics & background

The history behind each committee topic and the states that shape it.

Strengthening International Cooperation in Counter-Terrorism Efforts

Key players

Women, Disarmament, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control

Key players

Promoting Sustainable Transport for the Achievement of the 2030 Agenda

Key players

Strengthening Global Supply Chains to Promote Food Security

Key players

Protecting the Freedom of Religion or Belief

Key players

Promoting the Rights of Women and Girls in the Aftermath of Conflict

Key players

Full and Productive Employment and Decent Work for All

Key players

Inclusive Rural and Agricultural Development

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before 2026 National High School Mock Trial Championship, plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

In the news

Recent reporting to ground your prep

India's 131st Amendment Bill

Story

Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

Story

Supreme Court's Voting Rights Impact on 2026

Story

India's Women's Quota Bill Fails

Story

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Key terms & resources

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

2025-2026 Santa Clara County Mock Trial Invitational

16th Annual University of Cincinnati High School Mock Trial Invitational

University of Denver Denver Duels Invitational 2026

Montgomery County High School Mock Trial Competition 2026

Great Chicago Fire Invitational XII

21st Annual Ramblin' Wreck Invitational Tournament

Related conferences

2025-2026 Santa Clara County Mock Trial Invitational

16th Annual University of Cincinnati High School Mock Trial Invitational

University of Denver Denver Duels Invitational 2026

Montgomery County High School Mock Trial Competition 2026

Great Chicago Fire Invitational XII

21st Annual Ramblin' Wreck Invitational Tournament

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Key terms & resources

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

2025-2026 Santa Clara County Mock Trial Invitational

16th Annual University of Cincinnati High School Mock Trial Invitational

University of Denver Denver Duels Invitational 2026

Montgomery County High School Mock Trial Competition 2026

Great Chicago Fire Invitational XII

21st Annual Ramblin' Wreck Invitational Tournament

Related conferences

2025-2026 Santa Clara County Mock Trial Invitational

16th Annual University of Cincinnati High School Mock Trial Invitational

University of Denver Denver Duels Invitational 2026

Montgomery County High School Mock Trial Competition 2026

Great Chicago Fire Invitational XII

21st Annual Ramblin' Wreck Invitational Tournament