The Hague International Model United Nations 2025

Success! The 2025 THIMUN Conference continued KLAS' string of fruitful conferences for our third consecutive year since the resumption of in-person conferences in The Hague. The venue was, as usual, the World Forum Conference Centre in The Hague and, continuing the pattern of the previous two years, the conference had adopted yet another, another new format as the organisers continued to adjust various things with the goal of making it better and more productive. For the most part, they did so, but the changes introduced new challenges that everybody had to adapt to once again. Now, it is time to look back at how it went.

To begin with, the amount of work that goes into preparing for the THIMUN conference is considerable. The KLAS students who are on the THIMUN delegation officially start MUN activity in the summer during Term 1, and each delegate has to become intimately familiar with information about the UN, their country or UN organisation – Sweden, this year – the theme of the conference, which this year was “Impact of AI on Humanity” – a very topical and challenging topic – their assigned world issues, three issues each, and how these issues affect and are affected by the country that they represent and the rest of the world. They have to do research, give presentations, and write reports on three issues as they relate to their country; the specific world issues each delegate researches depend on the committee that they choose. Moreover, they have to be ready to use all of this information in English once they get to The Hague. This is a massive job every year, and all the delegates agree that no matter how well-prepared they are, it doesn't seem like it is enough, and this year was no different. This year, all of the delegates made a good effort with all of the preparation work that they should have done, including the homework the delegates were required to do over the winter break. In The Hague, they all faced the challenge of the conference and, I hope, gained some valuable things from the experience.

For the conference itself, the THIMUN delegation departed KLAS on Saturday, January 25. We flew to Amsterdam and then took our transfer bus to Amsterdam. There, we did a tour of the Anne Frank House, a tour that cannot in any way be described as fun, but that is undeniably worthwhile, and sadly now more relevant to current world affairs than ever before. Afterwards, we took our bus to our hotel, Bilderberg Europa Hotel, in Scheveningen in The Hague. As it was past dinner time, and we were all fairly tired after a fairly long day – we had departed KLAS at 07:30 – we had free time to eat, relax, and plan for Sunday.

On Sunday, January 26, we had a day for sightseeing, which included the cities of Amsterdam and Utrecht. On Monday, January 27, while I registered for the conference with the help of a few kind students, the students had a free day to do things in The Hague, including visiting museums and shopping. We finished the day by having a team dinner together at a delicious Indian restaurant in Scheveningen. Then it was time for study hall, during which they had a chance to do some last-minute preparation for the conference.

Then, on Tuesday, the hard work began. THIMUN is the largest Model United Nations conference in the world, and comprises about 3,200 students from around 200 school from over 100 different countries. It is an official NGO under the United Nations, so when students are at THIMUN, they are, literally, working for the United Nations. From Tuesday to Friday, the delegation participated in full work days from about 09:00 to 17:00, long days and hard work. They also had normal two-hour study halls at night in order to prepare for the following days. They faced the challenges of lobbying, merging resolutions, giving opening speeches, and debating in the conference centre among thousands of students. It was a difficult experience for even the best-prepared delegates. Nevertheless, despite what was a daunting beginning on the first day of the conference, the delegates refused to give up and kept trying hard all the way until the end of the conference. In fact, the motivation and enthusiasm of this year's delegation were exceptional. While none of our delegates succeeded in becoming main submitters of resolutions, the most prestigious accomplishment possible in the conference, this year, our delegation accomplished something perhaps even more valuable – everybody in the delegation succeeded in speak in debate during the conference, for our second year running! While having a delegate become a main submitter is an amazing accomplishment for one delegate, having all of the delegates speaking in debate during the conference is an amazing accomplishment for the whole delegation, and one that doesn't usually happen, and the whole delegation felt quite proud of it, as they deserved to!

On Saturday, February 1, we had a late-morning departure from our hotel for our transfer back to Schiphol Airport for our flight back to KLAS. It all added up to a stimulating week. I am sure the members of the delegation learned a lot not only about the world but also themselves, not only through their participation in the conference itself but also through their forging of new friendships with people like themselves from all over the world. I hope that MUN and THIMUN will always be a treasured part of their memories of KLAS.

This year, the effort and preparation of the delegates seemed quite good, though this is always an area in which they should strive to improve each year. On Monday, the lobbying day, it quickly became clear that some of our delegates were not as prepared as they would have liked to have been. Fortunately, there was a newly-added second lobbying session on Thurday, so that the delegates could lear from their first experience and improve. The simple truth is, though, no matter how much effort and time delegates put into their preparation, I have never had a delegate feel that they had done enough to enable them to hold their own in this highly competitive conference. It's challenging even for the best delegates.

As the week continued, however, more and more of our KLAS delegates were able to speak. Now, simply getting a chance to speak during the conference is a challenging task in and of itself – even when a delegate raises their placard to speak at every opportunity, there is no guarantee that the chair of the debate will choose them. It took determination, guts, and perseverance, but this year's delegates had prepared well and kept raising their placards, earning their chances to speak. As mentioned above, the end result was that all of the KLAS delegates who attended the conference this year spoke in debate, which was . . . awesome.

The reason why I am taking the time to explain all this is not simply to praise their stellar efforts, though. Rather, it is to remind the parents and students that THIMUN is not an activity and conference for anybody – it is an activity that prepares students to go to the largest, most prestigious, and most competitive MUN conference in the world, a conference for the best of the best. As a result, this year's conference highlighted the challenges that face students who choose to do MUN. In order to even have a chance to participate in the main business of the conference, debate, students must be able to follow the ideas of the debate. In order to follow the ideas of the debate, they must be able to understand the language of the debate, English. In order to understand the language of the debate, English, students must develop sufficient English listening skills, and in order to develop sufficient listening skills, students must use their English language skills as much as possible. The truly committed students do so not merely when they have to do so in classes and preparation exercises, but more importantly when they don't have to in their free time as well. This indicator of effort is, in my experience, one of the most accurate predictors of success in a venue like THIMUN. Students who are interested in applying for next year's team must keep this in mind – I will be looking for students who are active, outgoing leaders in using their English skills, who use them not merely when they have to do so, of course, but in their free time as well. It is therefore important to remember that, when choosing delegates, quality is far more important than quantity.

In short, there seems to be very little point in removing a student from a week of classes in KLAS in order to sit in a conference for a week, unspeaking, and so when choosing students for next year's delegation, the level of quality against which they will be judged will be the students who, in past years, did put in the effort and time in preparation for the THIMUN conference that allowed them to speak in debate.

Considering all of the above, I strongly encourage any KLAS student who is willing to make it their most serious commitment to consider applying to join the THIMUN Team. They must be aware that it is highly challenging, however. Applicants must have excellent motivation, English skills, grades, and discipline records in order even to be considered. If they meet these standards, THIMUN is a great opportunity for KLAS students to challenge themselves.