Committee Description
UNHRC:
Around the world human rights are being violated, behind closed doors or even blatantly out in the open. Those who seek help are turned away, and those who risk their lives to expose the truth often pay the ultimate price. But this reality of today does not need to be normalized for tomorrow. Delegates will gather to protect human dignity, rights, and a better future. Reform is on the horizon, it’s now or never.
Background Guide
Topics of Debate
Topic A: Protecting Journalists and Human Rights Defenders from State Violence
In many countries, truth comes at a cost. Journalists and human rights defenders walk into places most people avoid, carrying nothing but notebooks, cameras, and a belief that the world should know what happens in its darkest corners. Yet their work often paints a target on their backs. Governments silence them with threats, arrests, disappearances, and the quiet violence that never makes headlines. This committee steps into that uneasy space where speaking out becomes an act of risk. Delegates will examine how states blur the line between security and repression, how misinformation becomes a weapon, and how defenders of truth survive when the institutions meant to protect them look the other way. At its core, this topic asks a simple question with a difficult answer: who protects the people who protect our rights?
Topic B: Refugee Protection (Ukraine, The Middle East, Trump's Comments on Somalia)
Millions flee deadly conflicts, only to be trapped in camps or denied at borders. The UN Human Rights Council was created to protect these people and hold governments accountable, and it is up to delegates to uphold this founding doctrine. They must consider impossible questions: How do you protect those who have nothing? How do you hold those in power accountable? Where is the line drawn between sovereignty and global responsibility? The world poses these questions, and the answers lie in your hands.
Dais
