Founded as an office under the United Nations Secretariat in January 1998, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) has the designated goal of ensuring multilateral disarmament on an international scale with strict United Nations supervision. Since its foundation, UNODA has served as a fundamental organ in fostering civil relations between member states while also circumventing extensive military confrontation through diplomacy. The office also focuses on matters like counter-terrorism at the international level, illegal possession of both conventional and non-conventional weaponry, and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the contemporary world, UNODA actively works in collaboration with other sub-bodies of the United Nations like the Disarmament Commission or the General Assembly First Committee. For the aforementioned reasons, UNODA works in close alignment with Sustainable Development Goals 16 (Peace Justice and Strong Institutions) and 17 (Partnership for the Goals).

Given the fact that mutual disarmament can only be carried out at the global level through cooperation and collaboration, these goals also closely correspond with the conference theme of this year’s Koç JMUN: “Adopting global diplomacy as a catalyst for combatting international conflicts.” Promoting mutual disarmament on a global scale necessitates cooperation and collaboration. These objectives are vital for preventing large-scale international conflicts that could cause immense harm to humanity. If conflicting states are not persuaded to disarm, their efforts could endanger thousands, if not millions, of lives. In this year’s conference, both of the agenda items were selected from contemporary issues that have lasted for years with no presentable solutions from any side. Keeping the objective of the committee in mind will allow delegates to tackle these issues through diplomatic discourse between one another while also representing the views of their respective delegation. During this process, delegates will have to work in close collaboration while also having to decide which international efforts could present viable solutions to the selected dire problems without endangering lives.