Model United Nations at THWS, Schweinfurt

The Security Council was established in 1945 under the UN Charter as the organ with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Its five permanent members — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China — hold veto power, a structure that has shaped, and at times paralyzed, Council action throughout the Cold War, the post-1990 humanitarian interventions, and the present era of renewed great-power rivalry. In 2026, two files dominate the agenda: the war in Sudan and the contested rules of state behavior in cyberspace. The Sudan crisis erupted in April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ("Hemedti"), exploded into open war in Khartoum. The conflict has since produced the world's largest displacement crisis, famine conditions in Darfur and Kordofan, and credible allegations of ethnically targeted atrocities, particularly against the Masalit. The Council's 2004-era Darfur sanctions regime under Resolution 1591 remains in force, but enforcement of the arms embargo is widely seen as ineffective, with reported external support flowing to both belligerents. In parallel, the Council confronts the question of how international peace and security applies in cyberspace. Building on the work of the UN Group of Governmental Experts and the Open-Ended Working Group on ICTs, states broadly accept that international law applies online, but disagree sharply on attribution, thresholds for the use of force, and the protection of critical infrastructure such as hospitals, energy grids, and undersea cables. Recurrent incidents affecting civilian infrastructure have pushed the issue squarely onto the Council's security agenda.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was adopted in 1994 as one of the three Rio Conventions, alongside the UNFCCC on climate change and the CBD on biodiversity. It emerged from African-led demands at the 1992 Earth Summit for binding action on land degradation, particularly in the Sahel, where recurring droughts in the 1970s and 1980s had devastated livelihoods. The Convention is unique in linking environmental protection to development and poverty reduction, with a particular focus on drylands, which cover roughly 40 percent of the Earth's land surface and host about a third of its population. Desertification and climate change are tightly coupled. Rising temperatures, shifting rainfall, and more frequent droughts accelerate soil loss, while degraded land reduces carbon sequestration and amplifies warming. The IPCC's Special Report on Climate Change and Land (2019) confirmed that land degradation is both a driver and a consequence of climate change, with cascading effects on food security, migration, and conflict — visible from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia and the dry corridor of Central America. The UNCCD's flagship target, Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), is embedded in SDG 15.3, and the Great Green Wall initiative across the Sahel remains a signature, if underfunded, regional project. At COP16 of the UNCCD in Riyadh in late 2024, parties advanced work on drought resilience, land tenure, and sand and dust storms, but failed to adopt a binding global protocol on drought, a key demand of African and Latin American states. The current debate centers on financing — including how to align UNCCD action with climate finance under the UNFCCC's new collective quantified goal — on the role of the private sector in land restoration, and on safeguarding the rights of pastoralists, smallholders, and Indigenous peoples whose tenure is most exposed to degradation.

The General Assembly is the UN's only universal organ, with all 193 member states represented on the basis of sovereign equality and one-state-one-vote. Created by the 1945 Charter, it has steadily expanded its role beyond the original deliberative mandate: it admits new members, adopts the budget, elects non-permanent UNSC members and the Secretary-General, and through resolutions such as 'Uniting for Peace' (1950) has at times acted when the Security Council was deadlocked. Although its resolutions are generally non-binding, the Assembly shapes international norms on decolonization, human rights, development, and disarmament. The Assembly's current agenda reflects a UN system under significant strain. The 2024 Summit of the Future produced the Pact for the Future, the Global Digital Compact, and the Declaration on Future Generations, committing states to reform of international financial architecture, peace and security, and digital governance. Implementation, however, runs into hard divisions: developing states press for Security Council reform and concrete reform of debt and climate finance, while several major powers resist changes that would dilute their influence. Veto paralysis on Ukraine and Gaza has further pushed substantive debate into the Assembly, including through the 'veto initiative' (Resolution 76/262) that requires the Assembly to convene whenever a veto is cast. In 2026 the plenary is expected to focus on operationalizing Pact for the Future commitments, advancing SDG implementation at the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, and addressing recurring flashpoints — Ukraine, the Israeli-Palestinian situation, Sudan, and Haiti — where the Assembly has used emergency special sessions and standing resolutions to keep issues on the global agenda. Underlying all of this is the question of UN financing, as arrears and donor uncertainty constrain the Secretariat's capacity to deliver on expanding mandates.