Seomun

Seoul Model United Nations, commonly known as SEOMUN, is a Model United Nations conference organized by an association of international schools in Korea, including Seoul International School, Seoul Foreign School, Korea International School, and the Yongsan International School of Seoul. All of these schools are international schools located in the metropolitan area of Seoul, South Korea.
Since its inception in 1998, SEOMUN has grown from a small local conference completely hosted at a school into a three-day international conference with the first day of lobbying held at the host school followed by the final two days of debates at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The only recent exception was in 2010 when SEOMUN XIII moved to Sungkyunkwan University because of preparations for the 2010 G-20 Seoul summit.
The official conference date for the SEOMUN conference is November 3 to 5. You can visit the official website for more information.
The upcoming fifteenth annual session of SEOMUN (2012) will be hosted by the Yongsan International School of Seoul at Blue Square.
Debate is held using THIMUN-like rules and procedures.
History
SEOMUN started in 1998 as a program sponsored by Seoul International School for international schools in Seoul. In its early years, the conference took place over two days in the high school classrooms and library of Seoul International School.
In 2000 and 2001, Seoul Foreign School sponsored the program. In those years, an extra evening on Thursday after school was added for the sole purpose of lobbying and the venu was changed to the Grand Hilton Hotel. During all of those early years, the program used the name of the hosting school, such as SISMUN or SFSMUN.
The sponsorship program returned to Seoul International School in 2002, and was greatly expanded with the addition of a few overseas schools and a new venue at the COEX Convention Center. In that same year, the directors of the program decided to take on the permanent name of SEOMUN. Since that time, the conference has continued to grow with more schools from Korea and different schools from overseas. In addition, the forums have expanded from only three forums in the late 1990s to five committees including the International Court of Justice, Six Party Talks, and the Advisory Panel.
In 2007 and 2008, Yongsan International School of Seoul hosted the conference. During these years, several notable developments took place, including the introduction of the Six-Party Talks committee and the tenth anniversary of SEOMUN. The leadership of Yongsan International School of Seoul in these years was followed by a year of sponsorship by Seoul International School, and the leadership of Korea International School in the next two years. This year's conference (2012) marks the 15th annual conference of SEOMUN, SEOMUN XV.
Participation
In 2011, SEOMUN XIV featured over 450 student participants from nine international and foreign-language schools in South Korea and eight schools from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam and Myanmar.
Committees
SEOMUN is organized into eight different types of forums, most of which are standard in large Model United Nations conferences. The following committees are represented in the conference (as of 2011):
#General Assembly (two)
#Security Council
#Economic and Social Council
#Human Rights Council
#Special Conference
#International Court of Justice
#Advisory Panel
#Six-Party Talks
One major exception is the Six-Party Talks forum that simulates meetings of representatives from China, Russia, Japan, the United States, South Korea, and North Korea to find solutions with issues relating to North Korea.
Press
Two student press teams, Seoulite and SEOTV, report on the conference with Seoulite focusing on producing newspapers and SEOTV on producing video reports. Seoulite was established by a faculty advisor from Seoul International School in the early 2000s (decade) and directed for many years by Carolyn Brown while SEOTV was established by Brian Longbotham, THIMUN-Singapore's press advisor and faculty member at Korea International School in 2010.

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