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MUN/MODEL UNESCO ON ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

MODEL UNESCO ON ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Part of the MODEL UNESCO ON ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE series

MODEL UNESCO ON ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Paris, France · college

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Dates
Dec 9–2026 (day: 10)
Fee
TBD
Reg deadline
TBD
Delegates
TBD
Language
English
Format
In-person
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Summary

Model UNESCO on Ethics of Artificial Intelligence convenes college delegates in Paris to simulate the agency most directly charged with shaping global norms around AI. The conference uses UNESCO's ethics-of-AI portfolio as its substantive frame, asking participants to negotiate as if they were member-state representatives wrestling with the recommendations, gaps, and political tensions inside that body of work. The simulation is hosted in the city where UNESCO is headquartered, which gives the event a symbolic weight beyond a generic policy MUN. Delegates are expected to engage with real instruments - not invented scenarios - and to argue from the perspective of governments that have actually taken positions on algorithmic governance, data sovereignty, and the human-rights implications of frontier systems.

Why this edition matters in 2026

AI governance has moved from a niche technical discussion into one of the most contested arenas in multilateral diplomacy. UNESCO's Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence is one of the few near-universal normative texts in the space, and it sits alongside parallel efforts at the OECD, the Council of Europe, the G7 Hiroshima Process, and the UN's own High-Level Advisory Body. A simulation built specifically around the UNESCO frame forces delegates to understand why a cultural-and-scientific agency, rather than a security or trade body, came to hold this mandate. The topic also exposes a real fault line in global politics: democracies worried about disinformation and labor displacement, governments in the global south worried about extractive data practices and compute inequality, and authoritarian states interested in normalizing surveillance-friendly standards. Negotiating ethics text inside UNESCO is not a soft exercise; it is where these positions collide in language that later shapes domestic legislation. For a college-level conference to take this on seriously - in Paris, at the level of the actual agency - signals that AI policy is now mainstream MUN substance rather than a futurist side committee. Delegates who prepare well will leave with a working grasp of one of the most consequential negotiating tracks of the decade.

How to prepare

Strong preparation begins with the text itself. Delegates should read the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in full, then map their assigned country's official statements during its drafting and adoption phases. Pay attention to reservations, abstentions, and the language countries pushed to soften or strengthen - that is where the real diplomatic positioning lives. From there, build a second layer around your country's domestic AI posture: national AI strategies, data-protection regimes, export-control alignments, and any public position on frontier model regulation. A French delegate, a Brazilian delegate, and a Singaporean delegate should sound meaningfully different even when they all say they support 'human-centered AI.' Finally, anticipate the cross-cutting fights: compute and capacity gaps between regions, the role of the private sector in standard-setting, intellectual-property questions around training data, and the interaction between UNESCO's ethics frame and harder instruments emerging elsewhere. The delegates who win awards in Paris will be the ones who can move fluently between the normative language of UNESCO and the harder political economy underneath it.

Eligibility deep-dive

Level
college
Age
—
Team size
—
Country quota
Open

Schedule & deadlines

  1. Conference

    Dec 9, 2026 – Dec 10, 2026

Related editions & similar conferences

Frequently asked questions

  • Who is eligible to participate?

    The conference is pitched at the college level, so university students form the delegate base.

  • Where is the conference held?

    It takes place in Paris, the city that hosts UNESCO's headquarters, which reinforces the substantive link to the agency being simulated.

  • What is the substantive focus?

    Delegates simulate UNESCO's work on the ethics of artificial intelligence, negotiating in the frame of the agency's normative instruments on AI governance.

  • How long does the simulation run?

    It is a short-format conference spanning a winter weekend in Paris, which means committee sessions are compressed and pre-conference preparation matters more than usual.

Last verified May 27, 2026 · Source: mymun.com

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