How to use this list
Every Model UN committee comes down to three research questions: what has the UN already done on this topic, what does my country actually believe, and what are the facts on the ground. The websites below are grouped by which of those questions they answer. Most delegates only need two or three from each group.
Chairs reward delegates who cite primary sources: UN resolutions and reports by their document symbol, a country's own statements, and treaty records. Secondary sources such as think-tank backgrounders and news are for understanding the topic quickly. They should not be the evidence your position rests on.
This page is about where to look. For the step-by-step method (reading a background guide, taking notes, and turning research into a position paper), see the How to Research for Model UN guide linked below.
UN primary documents: what the UN has already done
These are the UN's own systems. Anything you cite from them is an official record, which is exactly what a chair wants to see in a position paper. They can feel hard to search at first. The trick is to search by document symbol whenever you have one.
- UN Digital Library(opens in a new tab)digitallibrary.un.org
Best for: Finding any UN resolution, report, meeting record or speech, with the related documents and votes linked together.
How to use it: Search by document symbol (for example A/RES/70/1 or S/RES/2231) whenever your background guide cites one. Each record links to the full text and, for resolutions, to the vote.
- Official Document System (ODS)(opens in a new tab)documents.un.org
Best for: Full-text search across official UN documents from the General Assembly, Security Council, ECOSOC and their subsidiary bodies.
How to use it: Use it when you need the exact wording of a document. Filter by body and document type to cut the results down to resolutions or Secretary-General reports.
Best for: Readable same-day summaries of Security Council, General Assembly and committee meetings, including what each country said.
How to use it: The fastest way to learn what your country argued at a real meeting on your topic. Quote the official record, but use these summaries to find the right meeting.
- UN News(opens in a new tab)news.un.org
Best for: Plain-language news and explainers on what the UN system is doing about a topic.
How to use it: Good for your first 10 minutes on an unfamiliar topic. It reports the UN's own work, so pair it with independent news for outside perspective.
- United Nations Treaty Collection(opens in a new tab)treaties.un.org
Best for: Checking whether a country has signed or ratified a multilateral treaty, and any reservations it attached.
How to use it: Open the Status of Treaties database, find the treaty, and read the participant table. A ratification or a reservation is some of the strongest evidence of a country's real position.
- UN General Debate(opens in a new tab)gadebate.un.org
Best for: Each country's annual General Assembly speech, with text and video, browsable by country and session.
How to use it: Read your country's most recent speech before writing your opening speech. It shows which issues its leaders chose to raise in front of the world.
Best for: Citing the legal basis for what a UN body can and cannot do.
How to use it: Chapter VI (peaceful settlement) and Chapter VII (enforcement) come up in almost every Security Council committee.
- UN Web TV(opens in a new tab)webtv.un.org
Best for: Watching real Security Council and General Assembly meetings, live or on demand.
How to use it: Watch ten minutes of a real meeting on your topic to hear how diplomats phrase agreement, disagreement and procedural points.
- Dag Hammarskjöld Library research guides(opens in a new tab)research.un.org
Best for: Learning how UN document symbols, resolutions and meeting records work, from the UN's own library.
How to use it: If your committee sounds like a 'MUN library' search, this is the real one: the UN library's own guides to its documents.
Security Council research sites
Security Council committees move fast and depend on knowing the Council's history on a file: which resolutions created a mission, which members vetoed or abstained, and what is being negotiated now. These sites cover exactly that.
- Security Council Report(opens in a new tab)securitycouncilreport.org
Best for: Independent background on the situations on the Council's agenda, plus a Monthly Forecast of the meetings coming up.
How to use it: Read the latest Monthly Forecast entry for your topic to see what the Council is expected to do next and where its members stand.
- What's in Blue(opens in a new tab)securitycouncilreport.org
Best for: Short updates on Security Council negotiations as they happen, including draft resolutions close to a vote.
How to use it: Named after the practice of putting a near-final draft resolution 'in blue' before a vote. Use it to understand which paragraphs real delegations fought over.
Best for: The Council's official resolutions, presidential statements, sanctions committees and programme of work.
How to use it: Look up the resolutions that created or renewed the mission or sanctions regime in your topic. Their operative clauses are where your own clauses start.
Best for: A running record of every Council meeting in summary form.
How to use it: Search your country's name plus the topic to find what it said in the chamber.
Where to find your country's position
Your country's position is best shown by what it has done and said: how it voted, which treaties it joined, and what its diplomats said in UN meetings. Use statements and votes as evidence, and use overviews (including ours) only to find them faster.
If your country rarely speaks on a topic, look at the regional group or bloc it usually votes with, such as the African Union, the EU, the Arab Group or the Non-Aligned Movement, and at its votes on related resolutions.
Best for: Statements, documents and membership information for each UN member state, collected by the UN library.
How to use it: Start here when you are assigned a country you know little about. It gathers that country's statements across UN bodies in one place.
- UN voting data (UN Digital Library)(opens in a new tab)digitallibrary.un.org
Best for: How member states voted on recorded votes in the General Assembly and Security Council.
How to use it: Search the resolution symbol from your background guide and check how your country voted. A 'no' or abstention on the main resolution is something your position paper has to explain.
- UN voting research guide(opens in a new tab)research.un.org
Best for: Understanding recorded votes, adoption without a vote, and where to find each.
How to use it: Read it once. It explains why many resolutions show no recorded vote at all: they were adopted without a vote.
Best for: Finding your country's mission to the UN in New York, including its website.
How to use it: A mission's website usually posts its ambassador's statements. Those are the most direct evidence of what your country says at the UN.
- Example: United States Mission to the UN(opens in a new tab)usun.usmission.gov
Best for: The U.S. position at the UN, in the words of its own diplomats.
How to use it: Every mission site works like this one: find the 'remarks' or 'statements' section and search it for your topic.
Best for: A foreign ministry's own briefs on its relations with other countries.
How to use it: Foreign ministries publish policy on bilateral relationships and regional issues. Search for '[your country] ministry of foreign affairs' to find yours.
Best for: Human rights committees: each country's own report on its human rights record, alongside UN and civil-society assessments.
How to use it: Read the national report for how your government describes itself, then the UN compilation for how others see it.
- Model Diplomat country profilesModel Diplomat
Best for: A starting overview of a country's foreign policy, blocs and UN voting pattern before you open the primary sources.
How to use it: Use it to orient, then follow the sources to the original documents you will cite.
- Model Diplomat UN votes by topicModel Diplomat
Best for: Browsing General Assembly voting patterns by issue area.
Data and statistics
A statistic makes a speech concrete, but only if it is current and sourced. Use international datasets so your numbers are comparable with other delegates' numbers, and always say the year.
Many older Model UN guides recommend the CIA World Factbook. Whatever quick-reference source you start from, check how current it is, and take the figures you cite from World Bank Open Data, UNdata or the relevant UN agency so they are dated and comparable.
- World Bank Open Data(opens in a new tab)data.worldbank.org
Best for: Comparable country statistics: GDP, poverty, education, health spending, energy, emissions and more.
How to use it: Open your country's page and note two or three indicators relevant to your topic, with the year. Data is only useful in a speech when it is dated.
- UNdata(opens in a new tab)data.un.org
Best for: Searching statistics from across the UN system in one place.
How to use it: Useful when the numbers you need come from a UN agency rather than the World Bank, for example population or energy statistics.
Best for: Refugee, asylum-seeker, internally displaced and stateless population figures.
How to use it: Essential for UNHCR, SOCHUM and migration topics. Check both 'country of origin' and 'country of asylum' for your country.
- WHO data(opens in a new tab)data.who.int
Best for: Global and country health statistics from the World Health Organization.
How to use it: Use for WHO committees and any topic about disease, health systems or health emergencies.
Background and analysis
When a topic is completely new to you, a good backgrounder saves an hour. Think tanks and research groups have their own perspectives and national bases, so read at least two and note where they disagree. Those disagreements are often the fault lines of your committee.
Best for: Short, readable primers on conflicts, countries, institutions and policy debates.
How to use it: Read the backgrounder on your topic first to get the history in one sitting. The Council on Foreign Relations is a U.S. think tank, so balance it with a non-U.S. source.
Best for: An interactive map and background on ongoing conflicts.
How to use it: It is published by a U.S. think tank and written with U.S. policy in mind. That is useful context if you represent the U.S., and a reminder to check other views if you don't.
- International Crisis Group: CrisisWatch(opens in a new tab)crisisgroup.org
Best for: A monthly tracker of conflicts and crises worldwide, with past months archived.
How to use it: Read the last three monthly entries for your conflict to see whether it is getting better or worse before committee starts.
- Chatham House(opens in a new tab)chathamhouse.org
Best for: In-depth research from a London-based international affairs institute.
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace(opens in a new tab)carnegieendowment.org
Best for: Policy analysis from a global think tank with research centers outside the U.S.
- ReliefWeb(opens in a new tab)reliefweb.int
Best for: Situation reports, maps and assessments on humanitarian crises, run by the UN's humanitarian office (OCHA).
How to use it: The best source for the facts on the ground in a humanitarian topic: who needs aid, where, and who is providing it.
News: what changed this week
Committees reward delegates who know the latest developments. Wire services such as Reuters and AP report events quickly and with little commentary, which makes them a good first choice for Model UN. Check the date on every article, and remember that a news report about your country's position is weaker evidence than the statement it reports on.
- Reuters(opens in a new tab)reuters.com
Best for: Fast, factual international news from a global wire service.
Best for: Straight news reporting from a U.S.-based, not-for-profit news agency.
- BBC News(opens in a new tab)bbc.com
Best for: International coverage from the UK's public-service broadcaster.
How to research a Model UN committee in 60 minutes
When time is short, this order gets you from a blank page to a usable research sheet in an hour. It uses the websites above in the sequence that builds on itself: UN documents first, then your country, then numbers and context.
Minutes 0–10: Read the background guide and list the questions
Write down the three or four questions the guide asks, and every UN body, resolution number and treaty it mentions. These are your search terms for everything that follows.
Minutes 10–20: Pull the UN documents
Look up each resolution symbol in the UN Digital Library. Read the most recent resolution's operative clauses and skim the latest Secretary-General report on the topic. For a Security Council committee, read the Security Council Report page as well.
Minutes 20–35: Find your country's position
Check how your country voted on the key resolutions, then find what it said: UN Member States on the Record, meetings coverage, its UN mission's statements and its most recent General Debate speech. Confirm treaty status in the UN Treaty Collection.
Minutes 35–45: Get three to five numbers
Take a few dated statistics from World Bank Open Data, UNdata or the relevant agency portal (UNHCR, WHO). Write down the source and year next to each.
Minutes 45–55: Add context and the latest news
Read one backgrounder (CFR or Crisis Group) and the last week of wire coverage, so nothing new surprises you in committee.
Minutes 55–60: Write a one-page research sheet
Your position in one sentence, three cited facts, likely allies and opponents, and two solutions your country could support. That page becomes your position paper outline and your opening speech.
Sources to use with care
Some sources are fine for getting started but should not appear in your citations.
- Wikipedia: useful for a first overview and for its footnotes, which often lead to the primary documents you should cite instead.
- Quick-reference country almanacs such as the CIA World Factbook: fine for orientation, but check how current any copy is and cite dated international data instead.
- Other delegates' position papers and old background guides: good for seeing a format, but their facts may be years old and reusing their text is plagiarism.
- AI chatbots, including Model Diplomat: use them to find and summarise sources faster, then open every source and cite the original document, not the AI's answer.
Where Model Diplomat fits
Model Diplomat is an AI research tool built for Model UN and political research. It is one tool in this list, not a replacement for it. Ask it a committee question and it answers with sources you can open, which is useful for finding the right resolution or statement quickly. The country profiles and UN voting pages above are free to browse.
A free account includes 200 searches on day one and 50 searches a day after that.
- Ask a research questionModel Diplomat
Best for: Finding the resolutions, reports and statements behind a topic, with links to the sources.
How to use it: Ask for document symbols and dates, then open the sources and cite those.
- Free Model UN toolsModel Diplomat
Best for: Timers, speakers lists, placards and other committee-room tools.