The Boston-based International Relations Council team won the best small delegation award at the London International Model U.N. conference, while two members also picked up individual accolades.
LONDON — The year is 2100. Two crack teams are working to avoid galactic warfare between Earth and Mars — and at the center of it all is Will Hanvey, the head delegate for Northeastern University’s student International Relations Council.
The futuristic scenario formed the basis of a so-called “crisis room” at the recent London International Model United Nations conference.
Hanvey walked away from the emergency talks having helped prevent a battle between Martians and Earthlings — and also took home to New England the award for best delegate in the crisis room.
His was one of three awards that the six-person team snared during the February event. Nylah Hill was recognized as the best delegate in the Disaster Risk Reduction Committee while the council team, completed by Nasyve Beech, Brooke Rhodes, Lily Zanze and Mallory Mitton, won the best small delegation award — a category for teams with 10 members or fewer — for the second year running.
Model United Nations, also known as Model U.N., is an educational simulation in which students learn about diplomacy, international relations and the workings of the United Nations.
The International Relations Council flew in from the U.S. in time to join the conference’s first day proceedings, which were hosted at Central Hall in Westminster, where the very first session of the U.N. General Assembly was held in 1946.
The idea behind the London conference, which is the largest in Europe and has been running since 2000, is to foster future world leaders to face global challenges with a spirit of international cooperation.
The challenge facing Hanvey ascended beyond the globe. Beech, a fourth-year politics, philosophy and economics student, describes Hanvey’s brief as “one of the most interesting crisis rooms I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Mine was a bit unique,” says Hanvey, a fifth-year data science and international affairs student. “It was a ‘Mars Independence Committee.’ It was a bit interesting because there were two rooms of delegates facing off against each other, with others in an ‘Earth Committee.’
“There were real-time status updates, and what we did affected the other room and vice versa. It was a lot of fun.”
Those taking part in crisis room situations were given a list of character objectives that they had to try to fulfill during the debate. In his fictional sci-fi scenario, Hanvey played the role of a minister from Mars who was pushing for a peaceful resolution in his planet’s campaign for independence from Earth’s control.
“I was particularly worried about a full-scale war,” says the 23-year-old New Yorker. “Some people were less worried about it, like some of the defense ministers, but my goals were to avoid a drawn-out conflict, to protect the Martian environment and go for Martian independence. It was quite a futuristic and interesting room.”
Delegates received background information about the topic they would be debating three weeks in advance. Members of the team were involved in a diverse range of discussions over the three days, having to research topics including climate policy reform and cybercrime.
And despite the Northeastern members being split up for some of the scenarios, the London trip was still very much a team affair, using their regular Wednesday council meet-ups to prepare themselves. “We worked together as a team for preparation,” Hanvey explains. “We presented our topics to our teammates before the conference, we discussed strategy beforehand and we collaborated throughout the conference on ideas and things like that.”
Northeastern was one of only two American universities represented at the conference, Hanvey recalls, with the team facing competitors from across Europe, including the Netherlands, France, Germany and Spain.
Beech, who compared arriving in London to “coming back home” after having spent the fall semester studying at Northeastern’s campus in the city, says the experience gave the team a hands-on understanding of different national policies and perspectives.
“I always love debating against the European teams because I feel like their diplomacy is focused more around European law and European Union regulations,” says the 21-year-old Texan. “As Americans, we only know about that through the classes we take and in the textbooks we read, so to actually be able to hear about their policy from people who know it firsthand was actually really cool. To be able to compare and contrast solutions was very fun.”
Hanvey, a former president of the council, says the society has already turned its attention to working toward making it three years in a row for success at the U.K. competition.
“I think we came back better debaters,” he says. “It was a great global experience in London, so we came back and told the club all about that. We have lots of people in our club who are excited for the opportunity to go next year and hopefully come back with another award.”