United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Welcome to the Committee Page for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Here, you can find details on the committee and the students who are chairing it, download the background guide, and learn about suggested primary source reading for the committee. Check the page regularly for committee updates.
Chair Contact Information
Chair: Aseel NajibVice Chair: Yujie Zeng
Crisis Director: Amanda Hemenway
Contact Email: unhcr@cmunce.org
Recent Updates
[November 15, 2008]: The Background guide has been posted.
[May 2008]: Welcome to the UNHCR webpage. Keep your eyes peeled to this site in the coming month for updates.
Committee Description
Topic 1: Iraqi Refugees & Internally Displaced Iraqis
More than 4.7 million Iraqis have left their homes, many in dire need of humanitarian care. Of these, more than 2.7 million Iraqis are displaced internally, while more than 2 million have fled to neighboring states, particularly Syria and Jordan. Recently, the United Nations declared the Iraqi refugee crisis as the most pressing and urgent case for refugees in the international community. Our goal at CMUNCE will be to suggest a viable solution to this crisis. Undoubtedly, the United States will be a key player here, as well as several Middle Eastern and European nations.
Topic 2: Kurdish Nationalism
The Kurds are an ethnic group residing primarily in the Middle East. Ethnically and linguistically different from their Arab and Turkish neighbors, they have agitated for their national rights throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Today, faced with a combination of dramatic political changes domestically and profound international developments, the Kurds of Turkey (as well as of Iraq and Iran) have entered a new phase of national awareness and domestic assertiveness. There are deeper conflicts here: there have been human rights violations being perpetrated against the Kurds by their Arab neighbors, and the US is both highly interested and deeply involved in this conflict due to the amount of oil in the region.
Background Guide
Recommended Resources and Documents