Columbia International Relations Council and Association - CIRCA

Hello everyone! We look forward to seeing you at our CMUNNY staff party / mixer event this Saturday, starting at 9:30 PM. Be sure to spread the word!

Submit a proposal for CMUNNY, our collegiate Model UN conference!

Applications are due at April 20.

Join us February 11th in Lerner Cinema from 4-6 for CPU's "Columbia is a Force for Good in the World".

CPU is excited to introduce our first debate of the semester, on the resolution: Columbia is a force for good in the world, on February 11th, 2022, from 4-6pm in the Lerner Cinema. If Covid-19 restrictions continue, the event will be online.
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The debate is cohosted by the Columbia Debate Society, and will feature speakers from CDS and other prominent campus groups. The debate is also cosponsored by the Columbia University Democrats, Columbia International Relations Council and Association - CIRCA, and the Double Discovery Student Organization.

We will feature a faculty panel, comprised of Professor Roger Lehecka, former Dean of Students, founder of Columbia's Double Discovery Center, Lecturer at the Center for American Studies, and a Class of 1965 Columbia College graduate, Dean of Columbia College, Professor of Chemistry, and Vice President of Undergraduate Education James Valentini, and Ted Schweitzer, President of the Columbia College Alumni Association and a Columbia College and Columbia Law School alum.

We are welcoming more student speakers for this debate! No prior experience is necessary. If you would like to give a 2-4 minute speech for or against the resolution, please fill out this form:
https://forms.gle/Mztvg3kAupP8LtaV7

See you there! Any questions email [email protected]. Here is the FB event: https://fb.me/e/399RJOWQY and to subscribe to our newsletter, visit cupolitics.com/subscribe. We are also recruiting new members! Visit linktr.ee/columbiapoliticalunion for more info.

Congratulations to the whole staff and secretariat of CMUNCE XXI for a hugely successful conference this past weekend! CMUNCE XXI has certainly set the standard for high school conferences in 2022, with an impressive array of committees and educational programming including Politics and Diplomacy Symposiums, Society and Culture Panels, and Diplomatic Mission Visits. A truly historical accomplishment and a moment of pride for all of CIRCA! We can’t wait to see how CMUNCE XXII carries on this legacy - stayed tuned in the coming months for information about secretariat applications and more.

Interested in getting involved in the non-profit, education-focused branch of CIRCA? CESIMS (Columbia Educational Simulations) is looking for two Under Secretary General's to join our team! The application is linked below and due on January 31st. Feel free to reach out to me ([email protected]) or our lovely Secretary General, Astrid Liden ([email protected]) with any question!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WanFZyXVYm--DHu8bu0pXhr7IN7Tu-HfK7_NdsL8nC4/edit?usp=sharing

Discover the varied programs and committees run by Columbia Model United Nations Conference and Exposition, CIRCA's premier high school Model UN conference held every January, at www.cmunce.org.

Our next committee for CMUNCE XXI is SOCHUM: Social, Humanitarian and Culture Issues.

The United Nations General Assembly Third Committee focuses its attention on the human rights of social, humanitarian and cultural issues around the world. This committee will have to work together to find effective ways to help those who feel at a disadvantage. Specifically, during CMUNCE, the committee will explore the rights of women and children, and racial and economic disparities. Throughout the conference, there will be two topics that come together. Topic A will discuss the safety of families living in war zones. The delegates will look at wars from Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East and work together to protect the safety of the innocent people caught in these war zones. Topic B will regard the same countries but will focus on child labor laws within the cultural societies. Delegates, it is up to you to generate good discussion and collaborate to find effective solutions to these pressing global issues.

To learn more about this committee, and other committees, please visit https://cmunce.org/our-committees-2.

Join Circa Academics and Foreign Affairs - CAFA this Friday with guest speaker Jana Jabbour to discuss Regional Transformations in the Middle East: What Lies Ahead? CAFA is the branch of CIRCA in charge of organizing the annual Speaker Series and organizing student-led discussions surrounding critical foreign affairs topics around the world. Columbia and Barnard affiliates are invited to attend and engage this Friday!

Read the Columbia Political Review's latest Policy 360 piece on Geopolitics in the Arctic.

Policy 360 is the Columbia Political Review’s foreign policy roundtable, an initiative born of a desire to understand contemporary sociopolitical issues through a global lens. In each edition, writers assess a contemporary political issue from the perspectives of various countries. Their objective is not to defend the country’s policy positions, but to analyze what may be learned, and to offer implications for broader sociopolitical contexts

Policy 360: Geopolitics in The Arctic — COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW Global warming is perhaps the single monolithic issue facing the planet today, threatening to overturn regional and global political and economic orders. While it lays hiding on most maps, global warming is destroying perennial sea ice, increasingly leaving the Arctic sea exposed year-round at an al

Our second committee for CMUNCE XXI is The Yiwei Resistance, 1895.

April 1895 — After a humiliating defeat in the Jiawu War, the Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan. The people of Taiwan were outraged over news of the cession—seen not just as a consignment into the hands of a detestable foreign power, but also as a betrayal by the faraway imperial court. Militias rose to arms across the island to repel the Japanese occupation force, and the local scholar-gentry hastily proclaimed an independent Republic of Formosa, one of the first democracies in Asia. Historically, the Republic of Formosa was short-lived. Its early cabinet was filled with former Qing officials from the mainland who fled at the first sight of danger. But those who remained—the Taiwanese born and bred with everything to lose—put up a dogged resistance that continued to haunt the next fifty years of Japanese colonial rule.

The committee begins in crisis: the newborn Republic, crippled by a series of early defeats, has its capital in chaos and its government ranks deserted. You, alongside the eminent figures on the island, must maintain rule of law and defend your homeland against the Japanese. Your successes or failures will determine the fate of Taiwan—as an island, as a people, and as a nation.

To learn more about this committee, and other committees, please visit https://cmunce.org/our-committees-2.