What is the eligibility level for participants in the SISMUN Conclave?

The SISMUN Conclave is designed for high-school level participants, offering an engaging Model United Nations experience tailored to their educational stage.

Where is the SISMUN Conclave held?

The SISMUN Conclave takes place in the city of Singapore, located in SGP.

What is the format of the SISMUN Conclave?

The SISMUN Conclave is a Model United Nations conference, providing a simulated diplomatic environment for high-school students to discuss global issues.

SISMUN Conclave 2026

Name: SISMUN Conclave 2026
Start: 2026-08-08 00:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-08-09 00:00:00+00:00
Location: Singapore

Aug 8–9, 2026Singapore, SingaporeIn-person

Happening nowRegistration open

The SISMUN Conclave is a Model United Nations conference specifically designed for high school students, offering a platform to engage with global human rights and social justice issues. Hosted in SGP, this event provides participants with an immersive experience in diplomatic simulations. The conference aims to foster a deeper understanding of international relations and the complexities inherent in addressing worldwide challenges.

Committees & topics

Topics
The Global Human Rights Regime Under Strain · Social Justice and Global Inequality · Contemporary Humanitarian Crises · Democratic Transitions and Democratic Backsliding · Regulation of Autonomous Weapons Systems · Decolonisation and Self-Determination · Water Security and Transboundary Resources · Environmental Protection and the Triple Planetary Crisis

Why it matters

In an increasingly interconnected world, understanding global dynamics and the nuances of international cooperation is paramount. The SISMUN Conclave offers high school students a unique opportunity to step into the shoes of diplomats and policymakers, grappling with complex challenges that transcend national borders, particularly those related to human rights and social justice. This engagement is crucial for developing critical thinking, negotiation skills, and a global perspective.

By focusing on global human rights and social justice, the conclave addresses some of the most pressing issues facing the international community today. Participants will explore how different nations approach these challenges, considering diverse cultural, political, and economic contexts. This exposure is vital for cultivating empathy and understanding the multifaceted nature of global problems. The experience gained here can inform future academic and career paths, encouraging the next generation to become active and informed global citizens.

How to prepare

To effectively participate in the SISMUN Conclave, delegates should undertake thorough preparation. This includes researching their assigned country's stance on various human rights and social justice issues, understanding its foreign policy objectives, and familiarizing themselves with relevant international agreements and conventions. A strong grasp of parliamentary procedure is also essential for navigating committee sessions.

Delegates should also consider the broader implications of their country's policies, including how they might impact other nations and international organizations. Utilizing resources such as the Model Diplomat's lessons on "engagement-strategies" and "what-is-stakeholder-mapping" can provide valuable frameworks for understanding the interests and motivations of various actors. Developing persuasive arguments and being prepared for constructive debate are key components of a successful Model UN experience. Furthermore, exploring "dynamic-analysis" can help anticipate how resolutions might evolve and what compromises may be necessary.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

United States

Often champions human rights and democratic values globally, but faces scrutiny regarding its own domestic record and foreign policy interventions.

Role in topic

A significant donor to human rights initiatives and a vocal advocate for democratic governance, the USA frequently leads international efforts to address human rights abuses. However, its historical actions and current policies are often subject to international debate and criticism.

China

Emphasizes national sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs, often prioritizing economic development over certain human rights concerns.

Role in topic

As a major global power, CHN's approach to human rights is characterized by its focus on state sovereignty. It often counters Western-led human rights narratives by highlighting its own development achievements and emphasizing collective rights over individual liberties, particularly in the context of its domestic policies.

Russia

Prioritizes national security and state stability, often viewing human rights discussions as attempts at external interference.

Role in topic

RUS frequently challenges what it perceives as selective application of human rights principles by Western nations. Its foreign policy often emphasizes a multi-polar world order and non-interference, which can lead to differing interpretations of international human rights obligations.

India

A large democracy with a complex human rights record, balancing constitutional protections with significant social and economic challenges.

Role in topic

IND, as the world's largest democracy, plays a crucial role in global human rights discussions. It often advocates for the rights of developing nations and emphasizes the importance of economic and social rights alongside civil and political rights, while also addressing its own internal human rights issues.

South Africa

A strong advocate for human rights and social justice, drawing on its history of overcoming apartheid.

Role in topic

ZAF's post-apartheid history positions it as a moral authority on human rights and racial equality. It often champions multilateralism and advocates for justice and equality on the international stage, particularly concerning issues of racial discrimination and decolonization.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

The Global Human Rights Regime Under Strain

The modern human rights regime traces to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, followed by the binding ICCPR and ICESCR covenants of 1966, and a dense web of treaty bodies, special procedures, and the Human Rights Council established in 2006. For decades this architecture expanded normatively, codifying protections against torture, racial discrimination, and gender-based violence, and embedding mechanisms such as the Universal Periodic Review. However, enforcement has always depended on state consent, and major powers have selectively engaged with — or rejected — scrutiny of their conduct. Today the regime faces a credibility crisis. Authoritarian consolidation in several large states, conflict-driven atrocities in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar and Xinjiang, and the rise of generative AI as a tool of mass surveillance and disinformation have all outpaced existing instruments. The 2024 OHCHR report on AI and human rights, and ongoing debates over a binding business-and-human-rights treaty, sit alongside open disputes over universality versus cultural relativism. Delegates must weigh whether to push for new normative instruments, reinforce existing accountability mechanisms, or accept a more fragmented, regionalized human rights order.

Key players

Contemporary Humanitarian Crises

The international humanitarian system, anchored in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and coordinated through OCHA since 1991, was designed for episodic emergencies. It is now overwhelmed by simultaneous, protracted crises: Sudan's civil war between the SAF and RSF since April 2023 has produced the world's largest displacement emergency with over 10 million displaced; Gaza faces catastrophic food insecurity under sustained military operations; Ukraine's war has displaced millions since 2022; and crises in Myanmar, the eastern DRC, Yemen, Haiti, and the Sahel remain acute. UNHCR records more than 120 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide. Funding has not kept pace: UN humanitarian appeals are routinely less than half funded, forcing WFP and others to cut rations. Access is increasingly constrained by sieges, bureaucratic obstruction, and attacks on aid workers, with 2023 and 2024 setting records for humanitarian deaths. Delegates must address core questions of donor burden-sharing, the politicization of access, the localization of aid to national NGOs, and how to uphold international humanitarian law when belligerents — including states — systematically violate it.

Key players

Democratic Transitions and Democratic Backsliding

Successive waves of democratization — Southern Europe in the 1970s, Latin America in the 1980s, Eastern Europe after 1989, and parts of Africa and Asia in the 1990s — produced an apparent global consensus that competitive elections, civil liberties, and rule of law were the legitimate basis of governance. The UN supported this through electoral assistance, peacebuilding missions, and instruments such as the ICCPR. However, V-Dem, Freedom House, and IDEA have documented sustained democratic regression since around 2006, with more countries autocratizing than democratizing each year. Recent transitions illustrate both promise and fragility: Bangladesh's 2024 transition after mass protests, Syria's post-Assad political reordering since late 2024, contested elections in Venezuela, and military coups across the Sahel — Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea — have rolled back ECOWAS-led democratic norms. Meanwhile established democracies confront polarization, disinformation, and executive overreach. Delegates must consider how the UN can support genuine transitions without imposing models, address transitional justice, and respond to the rise of 'electoral authoritarianism' that uses the form of democracy to hollow out its substance.

Key players

Regulation of Autonomous Weapons Systems

Lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) — systems that select and engage targets without meaningful human control — have been debated at the UN since 2013, first informally and from 2017 under a Group of Governmental Experts within the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). The GGE has produced eleven 'guiding principles' but no binding instrument, blocked by consensus-rule objections from major military powers. The 2023 GGE report and UNGA Resolution 78/241, adopted by 152 votes, marked a shift, requesting the Secretary-General's report on LAWS and signaling growing support for negotiations outside the CCW. The operational reality has overtaken diplomacy. Loitering munitions, AI-enabled targeting, and drone swarms have been used in Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Gaza, and elsewhere, while military AI investment accelerates. Core fault lines include the definition of 'meaningful human control,' how to verify autonomy thresholds, the dual-use nature of underlying AI, and whether to pursue a prohibition treaty (favored by the ICRC, the Stop Killer Robots coalition, and many Global South states) or a regulatory framework preserving development by major powers. Delegates must weigh humanitarian, IHL, and strategic-stability concerns against entrenched military interests.

Key players

Decolonisation and Self-Determination

Decolonisation has been a foundational UN project since the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Resolution 1514) and the establishment of the Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24). Most of the original 70-plus Non-Self-Governing Territories have achieved independence, but 17 remain on the UN list, including Western Sahara, New Caledonia, Gibraltar, the Falklands/Malvinas, and several Pacific and Caribbean territories. Three successive International Decades for the Eradication of Colonialism have ended without completing the agenda. The contemporary debate has broadened beyond the formal list. The 2019 ICJ advisory opinion on the Chagos Archipelago, the UK-Mauritius 2024 agreement on Chagos sovereignty, France's contested 2024 referendum process in New Caledonia, the stalled MINURSO mandate in Western Sahara, and growing CARICOM-led reparations claims for transatlantic slavery have reframed decolonisation as also encompassing economic sovereignty, data and resource colonialism, and historical justice. Delegates must address completion of the formal list, the legal weight of self-determination referendums, and whether the UN's decolonisation machinery should expand to address neo-colonial dynamics.

Key players

Water Security and Transboundary Resources

Roughly 60% of the world's freshwater flows across international borders through 286 transboundary river basins and hundreds of aquifers, governed by an incomplete patchwork: the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention (in force only since 2014, with limited ratifications) and the 1992 UNECE Water Convention, now open to global accession. SDG 6 commits states to universal access to water and sanitation by 2030, yet the 2023 UN Water Conference — the first in nearly half a century — concluded that progress is dangerously off-track, with roughly 2 billion people lacking safely managed drinking water. Climate change, glacier retreat, and population growth are intensifying competition. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam dispute among Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt remains unresolved; India's 2025 suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan has shaken one of the most durable water agreements; Central Asia faces the legacy of the Aral Sea and contested Amu Darya and Syr Darya flows; and the Mekong basin is reshaped by upstream Chinese dams. Delegates must consider how to strengthen transboundary water law, integrate climate adaptation, prevent the weaponisation of water in conflict, and finance water and sanitation infrastructure at scale.

Key players

Environmental Protection and the Triple Planetary Crisis

Multilateral environmental governance was built incrementally from the 1972 Stockholm Conference, through the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and its three Rio Conventions on climate (UNFCCC), biodiversity (CBD), and desertification (UNCCD). UNEP coordinates the system, while landmark instruments — the Montreal Protocol on ozone, the Paris Agreement on climate, and the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework — represent the regime's main achievements. UNEP characterises the contemporary challenge as a 'triple planetary crisis' of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Progress remains uneven. 2024 was the first calendar year to exceed 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels; the COP28 'transition away from fossil fuels' language has not produced commensurate national policies; INC negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty stalled in Busan in late 2024 over production caps; and the 2023 BBNJ 'High Seas Treaty' is still gathering ratifications. Meanwhile, the 2024 ICJ advisory opinion proceedings and the ITLOS climate opinion are reshaping state obligations under international law. Delegates must address financing for loss and damage, equitable transition, and whether stronger compliance mechanisms — including environmental crimes such as ecocide — should be embedded in international law.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for SISMUN Conclave 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Ken Martin's DNC Autopsy Reveals Party Strugg

DNC Autopsy Reveals Democrats' 2024 Failures

Supreme Court's Voting Rights Impact on 2026

Trump's Federal Election Strategy

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

Singapore High School August 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

SISMUN Conclave 2026

Aug 8–9, 2026Singapore, SingaporeIn-person

Happening nowRegistration open

Committees & topics

Topics
The Global Human Rights Regime Under Strain · Social Justice and Global Inequality · Contemporary Humanitarian Crises · Democratic Transitions and Democratic Backsliding · Regulation of Autonomous Weapons Systems · Decolonisation and Self-Determination · Water Security and Transboundary Resources · Environmental Protection and the Triple Planetary Crisis

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

United States

Often champions human rights and democratic values globally, but faces scrutiny regarding its own domestic record and foreign policy interventions.

Role in topic

China

Emphasizes national sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs, often prioritizing economic development over certain human rights concerns.

Role in topic

Russia

Prioritizes national security and state stability, often viewing human rights discussions as attempts at external interference.

Role in topic

India

A large democracy with a complex human rights record, balancing constitutional protections with significant social and economic challenges.

Role in topic

South Africa

A strong advocate for human rights and social justice, drawing on its history of overcoming apartheid.

Role in topic

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

The Global Human Rights Regime Under Strain

Key players

Contemporary Humanitarian Crises

Key players

Democratic Transitions and Democratic Backsliding

Key players

Regulation of Autonomous Weapons Systems

Key players

Decolonisation and Self-Determination

Key players

Water Security and Transboundary Resources

Key players

Environmental Protection and the Triple Planetary Crisis

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for SISMUN Conclave 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Ken Martin's DNC Autopsy Reveals Party Strugg

DNC Autopsy Reveals Democrats' 2024 Failures

Supreme Court's Voting Rights Impact on 2026

Trump's Federal Election Strategy

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

Singapore High School August 2026

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

Regional Outlook Forum 2026 – Confronting Chaos: The Future of International Order in Southeast Asia

Raffles Policy Dialogue 2026

International Conference on Privacy and Information Security Law (ICPISL)

IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2026: Managing Regional Tensions Amid Global Competition

International Conference on Public Policy, Globalization, and Democratic Rights (ICPPGDR - 26)

The Maxwell Challenge 2026

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

Regional Outlook Forum 2026 – Confronting Chaos: The Future of International Order in Southeast Asia

Raffles Policy Dialogue 2026

International Conference on Privacy and Information Security Law (ICPISL)

IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2026: Managing Regional Tensions Amid Global Competition

International Conference on Public Policy, Globalization, and Democratic Rights (ICPPGDR - 26)

The Maxwell Challenge 2026

Frequently asked questions