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Ibrahim Ozaydin Model United Nations

The Ibrahim Ozaydin Model United Nations conference offers high school students an immersive experience in international diplomacy. Hosted in İstanbul, Türkiye, this event is designed to foster an understanding of international relations and the complexities of global governance. Participants will engage in simulated United Nations committees, debating pressing global issues and developing resolutions.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the dominant committee topic. Click through for the full country profile.

TürkiyeTürkiye

As the host nation, Türkiye often emphasizes regional stability, economic development, and cultural diplomacy.

Role in topic

Türkiye's unique geopolitical position means it frequently plays a mediating role in international disputes and is a significant actor in discussions concerning migration, security, and trade across Europe, Asia, and Africa.

United StatesUnited States

The United States typically advocates for democratic values, human rights, and free-market principles.

Role in topic

The USA is a major global power whose policies and economic influence impact nearly every international issue, from climate change to security and trade.

ChinaChina

China often champions multilateralism, non-interference in internal affairs, and economic cooperation.

Role in topic

As a rising global power, China's economic initiatives and diplomatic approaches are increasingly central to discussions on global development, trade, and international governance.

RussiaRussia

Russia frequently emphasizes national sovereignty, security interests, and a multipolar world order.

Role in topic

Russia is a key player in international security, energy policy, and various regional conflicts, often presenting alternative perspectives on global governance.

BrazilBrazil

Brazil often promotes South-South cooperation, environmental protection, and reform of international institutions.

Role in topic

As a leading voice from Latin America, Brazil's stance on climate change, sustainable development, and global economic equity is particularly influential.

Topics & background

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

1

Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ)

Established by ECOSOC resolution 1992/1 in the wake of the Cold War's surge in transnational crime, the CCPCJ is the principal UN policymaking body on crime prevention and criminal justice. It guides the implementation of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Convention, 2000) and its protocols on trafficking in persons, migrant smuggling, and firearms, and oversees the work of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Successive Crime Congresses, most recently the Kyoto Congress (2021), have shaped its evolving agenda. Contemporary debates center on the rapid digitalization of crime. After years of contested negotiations, the General Assembly adopted the UN Convention against Cybercrime in December 2024, the first global treaty of its kind, which exposed deep divisions between states emphasizing law-enforcement cooperation and those warning of risks to human rights and journalistic freedom. Parallel concerns include trafficking in persons along migration corridors, illicit financial flows, environmental crime, and the misuse of cryptocurrencies. The Commission today must reconcile sovereign criminal jurisdictions with the need for harmonized standards and mutual legal assistance in an increasingly borderless threat environment.

Key players

2

Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC)

Disarmament & International Security Committee (GA First Committee)

DISEC, the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, was established in 1945 to address threats to international peace through arms control and disarmament. It has shaped landmark instruments including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993), and more recently the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017). Although its resolutions are non-binding, DISEC sets the normative agenda that feeds into the Conference on Disarmament and treaty bodies. The contemporary agenda is dominated by emerging-technology arms control. Debates on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems have accelerated since the 2023 Group of Governmental Experts report, with a growing coalition seeking a binding treaty requiring meaningful human control, while major military powers prefer voluntary norms. The committee also confronts a renewed outer-space arms race following Russian and Chinese ASAT tests and stalled PAROS negotiations, alongside the erosion of arms control architecture after the collapse of the INF Treaty and the suspension of New START obligations. Cyber norms, hypersonic weapons, and AI integration into nuclear command-and-control further complicate the disarmament landscape.

Key players

3

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Founded after the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, UNEP is the UN's principal authority on the global environment, headquartered in Nairobi. It has midwifed major multilateral environmental agreements, including the Montreal Protocol (1987), the Basel Convention on hazardous waste, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Its governing body, the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA), has become the highest-level decision-making forum on environmental policy. UNEP's current agenda is anchored by the ongoing negotiations for a legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, mandated by UNEA Resolution 5/14 in 2022. The fifth and intended final session (INC-5) in Busan in late 2024 failed to produce a treaty, with sharp divisions over upstream production caps between a High Ambition Coalition and major petrochemical producers. UNEP is simultaneously implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in 2022, tracking the 'triple planetary crisis' of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, and coordinating with the UNFCCC after COP28's first-ever call to transition away from fossil fuels.

Key players

4

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

UNESCO was founded in 1945 in London on the premise that 'since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.' Its mandate spans education, the sciences, culture, and communication, and includes administration of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, the 2003 Intangible Heritage Convention, and the 2005 Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. UNESCO has periodically been a site of geopolitical contestation, including the US and Israeli withdrawals in 2018 and the US re-entry in 2023. Key current issues include the protection of cultural heritage in conflict zones, where UNESCO has documented damage to sites in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan under the 1954 Hague Convention regime. Its 2021 Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, adopted by all 193 member states, has become a reference framework for AI governance, complementing work on media freedom and online disinformation. UNESCO also leads the global education agenda under SDG 4, addressing the post-pandemic learning crisis, and promotes open science and ocean literacy through the UN Decade of Ocean Science.

Key players

5

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

UNODC was created in 1997 by merging the UN Drug Control Programme and the Centre for International Crime Prevention. Based in Vienna, it serves as the secretariat for the international drug control conventions of 1961, 1971, and 1988, as well as the Palermo and Merida (UN Convention against Corruption) treaties. It supports member states through research, treaty implementation, and field-based technical assistance in over 80 countries. UNODC operates amid a fragmenting global consensus on drug policy. The cannabis legalization wave in the Americas, the catastrophic synthetic opioid crisis driven by fentanyl, and the resurgence of Afghan opium and methamphetamine flows following the Taliban's 2022 ban have all stressed the existing conventions. The Office also confronts record cocaine production in the Andes, the rise of cyber-enabled fraud compounds in Southeast Asia (notably along the Mekong), surging trafficking in persons, and entrenched corruption that undermines development. Its mandate increasingly intersects with terrorism financing, environmental crime, and the new UN Cybercrime Convention adopted in 2024.

Key players

6

Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC)

The CTC was established by Security Council Resolution 1373 in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, requiring all member states to criminalize terrorist financing, freeze assets, deny safe haven, and cooperate on intelligence and prosecution. It is supported by the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), which conducts country assessments, and works alongside the 1267/1989/2253 ISIL and Al-Qaida sanctions regime and the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism established in 2017. A generation later, the CTC's agenda has broadened well beyond Al-Qaida-style transnational jihadism. The resurgence of ISIL-K following the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the rapid expansion of jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel after coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and the persistence of Al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa keep regional terrorism on the agenda. Meanwhile, the Committee is increasingly seized with terrorist exploitation of new technologies—drones, cryptocurrencies, AI-generated propaganda—and with the politically fraught problem of foreign terrorist fighters, including repatriation of detainees and families in northeast Syria. Human rights compliance in counter-terrorism, addressed by Resolution 2178 and successor texts, remains a persistent fault line.

Key players

7

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

ECOSOC is one of the six principal organs established by the UN Charter in 1945, coordinating the economic, social, and related work of UN specialized agencies, functional commissions, and regional bodies. It is the central platform for follow-up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development through its annual High-Level Political Forum, and oversees the Financing for Development process. The Council's current agenda is shaped by an acute development financing crunch. More than half of low-income countries are in or near debt distress, and the G20 Common Framework for debt treatment has delivered slow and uneven results for cases such as Zambia, Ghana, and Sri Lanka, prompting African and Latin American debtors to push for a UN-led sovereign debt restructuring mechanism. The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville in 2025 produced commitments on tax cooperation, SDR rechanneling, and climate finance whose implementation now falls to ECOSOC. In parallel, following the 2024 Global Digital Compact, the Council is steering work on inclusive digital public infrastructure as a means to accelerate stalled SDG progress.

Key players

8

International Criminal Court (ICC)

The ICC was established by the Rome Statute, adopted in 1998 and entering into force in 2002, as the first permanent international tribunal with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and—since the 2017 Kampala amendments—the crime of aggression. Seated in The Hague, it operates on the principle of complementarity, intervening only when national courts are unable or unwilling to prosecute. Its 124 states parties exclude major powers such as the United States, Russia, China, and India. The Court is now operating in an unusually contested political environment. In March 2023 it issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, and in November 2024 against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas commander, in connection with the Gaza conflict. These decisions have triggered US sanctions on Court officials, sharpened debates over head-of-state immunity and the obligations of states parties (illustrated by Mongolia's non-arrest of Putin in 2024), and intensified scrutiny of perceived selectivity. Ongoing situations include Sudan/Darfur, Libya, Venezuela, the Philippines, and Myanmar/Bangladesh, while the Office of the Prosecutor pursues a strategy emphasizing sexual and gender-based crimes and crimes against children.

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before Ibrahim Ozaydin Model United Nations, plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

13 Steps disarmament1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee5+5 Joint Military Commission Libya9/11 Commission ReportAd Hoc Committee CybercrimeAfrican Union Commission

Lessons

Courses

Country profiles

In the news

Frequently asked questions

  • What is the eligibility level for participants?

    The Ibrahim Ozaydin Model United Nations conference is designed for high-school level students.

  • Where is the conference located?

    The conference takes place in İstanbul, Türkiye.

  • What is the expected size of the conference?

    The conference is expected to host a significant number of delegates, fostering a dynamic and engaging environment.

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