19 - 24 March 2012 - Bolivia
From 24 to 26 January 2017, UNODC participated in the 'The Hague International Model United Nations' (THIMUN) conference organized by the Qatar Foundation in Doha, Qatar.
This year, the conference addressed several topics related to UNODC's mandate, including firearms trafficking. In the context of UNODC's initiative 'Education for Justice' (E4J), the Organization was therefore invited to present on specific topics in the different committees and commissions of the event.
The large scale event convened 1847 participants, including student delegates, support and conference service students as well as teachers, from schools located in 21 different countries. Given that many of the participating schools were international schools, the student delegates attending the 2017 THIMUN Qatar conference were from 87 different countries.
UNODC, through its Global Firearms Programme, introduced the subject of firearms trafficking to the young student delegates by presenting and discussing, the topic 'Arms Sales for Commercial Benefits' in the 1 st Committee as well as the topic 'Limiting the Availability of Small Arms to Reduce Urban Violence' in the Disarmament Commission.
UNODC was also invited to attend an informal Q&A session with the accompanying teachers. The session served to present the E4J initiative and to receive teacher's feedback and comments on it. The teachers welcomed the initiative underlining that tools developed by the United Nations would help to address the often sensitive topics that relate to UNODC's mandate in the classroom.
UNODC's E4J initiative is created to support implementation of the Doha Declaration (A/Res/70/174), the outcome document of the 13th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. It seeks to prevent crime and promote a culture of lawfulness through education activities designed for primary, secondary and tertiary levels. The initiative covers several topics of UNODC's mandate, including, among others, corruption, terrorism, criminal justice, firearms trafficking and cybercrime.
