International Court of Justice
Director's Letter
Dear Delegates,
It is my honor to welcome you to the International Court of Justice at Harvard National Model United Nations 2021.
My name is Will Schrepferman, and I will be serving as your Director. I am a rising sophomore (having taken a gap year for the past two semesters) at Harvard College concentrating in Government and Data Science. I was born in Cleveland and lived in Chicago as a toddler, but I grew up in central Indiana. Please excuse my Midwestern affinity for dad jokes and exclaiming ‘ope!’ with agonizing frequency. I fell in love with Model United Nations in high school, and it has been one of the central parts of my college experience to this point. I have staffed the last two years’ iterations of HMUN and HNMUN (during the latter of which I engaged in a mock swordfight on our committee table, which remains one of the coolest things I’ve ever done). I also compete in conferences with ICMUN, Harvard’s travel team. Outside of school and MUN, I’m an avid follower of Chelsea FC and football in general, a live music enjoyer and proud child of two Deadheads, and an incredibly amateur maker of homemade sushi.
I am so, so excited to bring you a committee that (to my knowledge) is entirely unprecedented in HNMUN history. Rather than debating issues representing countries in a General Assembly committee, or roleplaying individuals solving crises in a Specialized Agency committee, the International Court of Justice will put you in an entirely unique set of shoes: your own. You and your fellow delegates will serve as Judges on the court, using your research, expertise, debate, expert testimony, and witnesses to write opinions on matters of critical international importance. You won’t have a prescribed ideology or agenda to follow beyond your own interpretation of international law and the cases before you.
This first-of-its-kind (at HNMUN, at least) committee will present a unique challenge, and I hope to attract delegates that are willing to think outside the box and test the boundaries of what MUN can be alongside me and our wonderful committee staff, led by Crisis Directors Kelsey Griffin and Christine Li.
Sincerely,
Will Schrepferman
Director, The International Court of Justice
Harvard National Model United Nations 2022
Crisis Director's Letter
Dear Delegates,
Welcome to HNMUN 2022! My name is Christine Li and I am so incredibly excited to serve as your Crisis Director for the revolutionary and innovative International Court of Justice Committee (ICJ) this year. While the ICJ serves a critical role in the infrastructure of international law and the United Nations itself, we hope that our new design for the committee will allow delegates to interact with the difficult case topics in a more realistic and consequential manner and truly make the institution’s value central to the experience.
For a little more background on myself, I am a junior studying economics with a secondary in government. At college, I’m largely involved with a number of political and international relations programs, from analyzing polling data with the Harvard Public Opinion Project to traveling as a Head Delegate for our model UN team. I began participating in Model UN for the first time here at Harvard but have since fallen in love with the organization and the conferences that we are able to compete in and create.
Almost the entirety of my Model UN experience has been in crisis committees, and I have served as an Assistant Director and Director for the Specialized Agencies in previous iterations of HNMUN. I am very much looking forward to seeing all of the elaborate plans you will devise, and I will strive to create a committee that is as dynamic and delegate-driven as possible alongside our amazing Director, Will Schrepferman. Looking forward to meeting you all!
Best,
Christine Li
Crisis Director, International Court of Justice