SECRETARIAT 2017
Cristina Chacón Armayor
Secretary General
Emma Vermunicht
Under Secretary General
Karim Abada
UNSC Chair
Lars Stollenwerk
UNSC Chair
Alexander Kapp
DISEC Chair
Simon Bosmans
DISEC Chair
Alejandro Esteso Perez
Presidente Consejo de DDHH
Isabel Martínez Rivas
Presidenta Consejo de DDHH
Constantin Pläcking
Editor in Chief
Javier Íñiguez de Onzoño
Vice Editor in Chief
CRISTINA CHACÓN ARMAYOR
SECRETARY GENERAL
I am Cristina Chacón, graduate in Law and with a Master of Access to legal practice. Currently I am a third year Criminology student and at the same time I study the title of expert in international cooperation.
​
I landed in the MUN world three years ago, due to –I guess as the majority of you here- the interest I had towards economy, politics and international relations. This fascination has only increased, especially in the current international geopolitical situation. Now, I am the President of OVImun and I may say that I have already seen a MUN from all possible angles.
​
I expect that you, dear delegates –as future world leaders-, see in MUNUSAL an opportunity for self-realization and development in a unique context. I am sure the experience will not leave you indifferent.
As Secretary General I promise MUNUSAL 2017 will be greatly enriching and meaningful for all of you. I look forward to welcoming you in April!
EMMA VERMUNICHT
UNDER SECRETARY GENERAL
It was way back in September 2014 that Emma was waiting outside a small classroom at her university, waiting to be let in for an interview for some kind of MUN association... Soon, she entered the interview room without really knowing that this would be the beginning of a long and wonderful journey. Since then, she has been involved in the MUN world as Delegate, Chairperson, Event Manager in conferences all over Europe and currently, she is responsible for the Public Relations and Partnerships of the KU Leuven MUN association in a crazy little country called Belgium.
In her opinion, MUN is one of the greatest things that she has ever experienced. To her, exchanging ideas with people from different nationalities, making lifelong friends all over the world and working together to make this planet a better place is what MUN is all about.
​
When Emma is not busy doing MUN related stuff (which amounts to about 99% of her time), she studies Political Science at the KU Leuven. Currently she is on a semester break, also called Erasmus, in Paris at Sciences Po where she is discovering the French lifestyle and enjoying the Parisian culture.
Now, she can start looking forward to meeting all of you in Salamanca in April, and she’s already convinced that MUNUSAL 2017 will once again be an unforgettable experience.
In the end, she would like to quote Dag Hammarskjöld, who once said: “Everything will be alright when people stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves.”
LARS STOLLENWERK
CHAIR - UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL
French fries are Belgian in reality! Now that we have established this fact, hi there, this is Lars and he will chair the Security Council at the upcoming MUNUSAL conference. Lars is a 23 years old Belgian who studied History and European Politics at the University of Leuven. Currently, he is pursuing an internship in security & defence consultancy.
As is inevitable when you study in Leuven, Lars fell for the attraction of KULMUN and took part in multiple MUN conferences across Europe. Having exhausted all challenges being a delegate can bring, it is time to bring that experience to the new generation and take up the responsibility of chairing.
Lars’s hobbies include playing the devil’s advocate, training for a marathon that will take place far in the future and telling people about irrelevant historical details. He also likes to be optimistic, which is why he is sure MUNUSAL will be the best conference of them all.
KARIM ABADA
CHAIR - UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL
Karim Abada is a 22 Year old Political Science Major from Egypt, who is currently completing his Bachelors at the University of Tübingen in Germany. His love for MUN began in 2010 with his first conference. Ever since then, he has attended numerous conferences as both a delegate and a chair, purely because of all the places you get to see, things you get to do, and people you get to meet, and now, almost at the twilight of his MUN ‘career’, he is looking forward to yet another amazing MUN.
Chairing the UN Security Council, Karim is looking forward to intense and heated debates between the delegates, as well as some hard-core negotiation in one of the most important political councils in the modern history of the world, dealing with some of the most pressing issues on hand today.
Aside from his love of MUNing, Karim enjoys debating anything from the current state of the middle east, the significance of proper mozzarella on a pizza, to the dangers that Donald Trump and the fox he has on his head pose to international peace and security, whether at 11 in the evening or at 7 in the morning!
ALEXANDER KAPP
CHAIR - DISARMAMENT AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE
Alex has been doing MUN for five years now rumour has it - he is absolutely stoked for MUNUSAL.
During both, his first ever conference and his first time chairing he was part of a DISEC committee, which right next to the Security Council is his absolute favourite to simulate. He is studying Political and Administrative Sciences in Konstanz where he's also the Head of the MUN society. Disarmament and security have always been the at the centre of his MUN career as he also specializes in Crisis Simulations and the UN Security Council, to which he even dedicated an entire conference that he and his society put on just this May. In his free time he enjoys running and other endurance sports, so if you’re up for a little pre-conference run to discover Spain, where he has never actually been before, just hit him up, else he's looking forward to meeting everybody at what he is sure will be at the amazing and demilitarized GA1 – DISEC Committee of MUNUSAL.
SIMON BOSMANS
CHAIR - DISARMAMENT AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE
Ever since he was 10, Simon’s life has been most marked by the places he’s travelled to, and the people he’s met. He has visited the savannas of Benin and the salt deserts of Bolivia, worked on a humanitarian aid project in the Congo for a few weeks, been on exchange in the US for almost a year, lived in Paris and Berlin as part of his studies, and attended quite a few MUN conferences all over Europe in the meantime. Incidentally, it’s these last few trips that Simon has enjoyed most, because they let him indulge in all his passions, whether it’s travel, diplomacy or cheesy country- based pick-up lines.
However, when he’s not doing who-knows-what abroad, Simon lives and studies in Leuven, a small but fierce Belgian university town OBVIOUSLY most known for its MUN association (KULMUN), which he’s been part of since his first year at uni. In Leuven, apart from debating with KULMUN, Simon is now finishing his last year before becoming a “bachelor” (form an orderly queue, ladies) in Political Science. But most importantly, he’ll be one of your chairs at DISEC (aka MUNUSAL 2017’s best committee) and can’t wait to meet you all in April!
ALEJANDRO ESTESO PÉREZ
PRESIDENTE - CONSEJO DE DERECHOS HUMANOS
"Mi nombre es Alejandro Esteso Pérez y tengo el placer de presentarme como Presidente del Consejo de Derechos Humanos en esta nueva edición de MUNUSAL. Nacido y criado en Valencia, curso actualmente mi cuarto y último año de Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid, ámbito gracias al cual me introduje en el mundo de los Modelos de Naciones Unidas, habiendo participado en más de una decena de ellos y viajando a destinos como París o Roma.
He tenido la oportunidad de vivir la experiencia diplomática desde dentro trabajando como becario en la Embajada de España en Bosnia y Herzegovina, donde he podido ampliar mis conocimientos sobre las más relevantes cuestiones políticas y sociales de Europa oriental. Además, pude profundizar de primera mano mi instrucción en el ámbito de los Derechos Humanos en el marco de un proyecto formativo en la ciudad sitiada de Mostar, núcleo urbano icónico de las guerras de desintegración de Yugoslavia.
Como repetidor en MUNUSAL, tras haber presidido la Cumbre Iberoamericana en la edición de 2016, no me resta sino desear a nuestros futuros participantes una más que fructífera conferencia. Estoy absolutamente convencido de que disfrutaremos de la experiencia sin parangón que siempre brinda un Modelo de Naciones Unidas."
ISABEL MARTÍNEZ RIVAS
PRESIDENTE - CONSEJO DE DERECHOS HUMANOS
Actualmente estoy en 3º de carrera en el Doble grado en Derecho y en Ciencias Políticas de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Desde que tengo 15 años la política en todas sus formas y niveles pasaron a convertirse en una vocación tanto personal como profesional, y es que como bien publicó en uno de sus ensayos Carol Hanish: “lo personal es político”.
Creo en la defensa de los Derechos Humanos como fin de conseguir una cultura de paz y cambio, como desarrollo de una sociedad libre e igualitaria. Defender los derechos humanos es luchar con humildad para conseguir transformaciones democráticas y sociales que impliquen la apropiación de estos derechos por y para todas las personas.
Qué elegante conjunción para tan problemático mundo donde luchamos constantemente para sostener al ser humano como especie.
CONSTANTIN PLÄCKING
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Constantin Pläcking is 28 years old and studies English and History at the University of Tübingen in southwestern Germany. He was born and grew up in Stuttgart, Germany. During school he spent one year near Bath, England and during University he went with Erasmus to Southampton, England. There he did a lot of student media, which made him found a local student-oriented website in Tübingen called Neckarstudent.de. For now three years he is a freelance journalist. In 2014 he worked as a for a newspaper in Stuttgart and since 2015 he is a reporter for the German public broadcaster SWR, where he mostly does radio pieces, manages social media and edits videos for their website. Also he’s got have a small video production company. In the MUN world he chaired the tabloid newspaper “The Polar Bear” at the 2016 Tübingen International Crisis Simulation (TICS) and was a delegate for the United States in the Science and Technology Committee at Karlsruhe Model United Nations (KAMUN).
JAVIER ÍÑIGUEZ DE ONZOÑO
VICE EDITOR IN CHIEF
Javier was born in Salamanca, Spain, in 1996, where he spent his childhood years mostly reading and running through its golden streets. At the age of 10, a series of unfortunate events made him moved to another (much uglier) city, which he did not really like. But it was that very same year when he won his first literature contest, and also when he decided he would become a journalist. Over the next ten years, Javier decided he was interested in the century he was living in, so he started to study languages, like French or Chinese, to understand it better. He also travelled several times to Canada and the United States to improve the language you’re reading in right now. His interest in the media world was increasing as well, so he thought it would be a great idea to open a YouTube channel and speak frequently to his webcam. That idea was a profound mistake which he deeply regrets, and the channel is currently nowhere to be found. Right now, Javier is studying Journalism in his hometown. He loves Anglo-Saxon TV shows (way too much for his own good), despises basic people and the rise of far-right populisms in Europe.