Blog · Writing & research

How to Write a Model UN Position Paper

The position paper is the only part of Model UN where you compete in writing, before anyone hears you speak. It is also the most predictable document in the activity: at nearly every US conference it has the same three sections, the same one-page budget, and the same reader, a chair skimming a stack of them in one sitting. This guide walks the structure, then shows a weak paper and a strong paper on the same topic, with notes on exactly what separates them.

The three-part structure

Almost every conference expects the same skeleton, one page per topic:

1. Topic background. The problem and what the UN has already done about it. Two to four sentences. Its only job is proving you understand the issue; it is not the section that wins anything.
2. Your country's position and past actions. Where your country stands and, more importantly, what it has done: laws, votes, treaties, programs, money. This is the section chairs read most closely, because it is the one that cannot be written without research.
3. Proposed solutions. Two or three concrete proposals you will push in committee, each specific enough to become an operative clause later. This section becomes your speeches and your bloc's working paper.

Formatting defaults: single spaced, a serif font, a header block with committee, topic, country, and your name, written in third person throughout. The printable template holds the full spec and a pre-submission checklist.

A weak paper, annotated

Both samples below answer the same assignment: the delegation of Kenya in SOCHUM, on refugee access to education. Here is the paper chairs see forty times per conference.

Education is a human right, and refugees deserve access to it like everyone else. There are millions of refugees around the world who cannot go to school, which is a very serious problem for the international community.

Every sentence here is true and none of it is research. No UN action named, no number sourced, and nothing about Kenya. A chair learns only that the delegate has heard of the topic.

Kenya believes that education is very important and supports refugees. Kenya has always been committed to human rights and works with the United Nations on this issue.

The fatal test: swap "Kenya" for any other country and the paragraph still works. A position section with no law, no vote, no program, and no date is a placeholder, and chairs read it as one.

Kenya proposes that the international community work together to increase funding for refugee education and raise awareness of this important issue. All countries should cooperate to solve this problem.

"Work together", "raise awareness", and "increase funding" with no actor, amount, or mechanism cannot become an operative clause. This delegate will arrive in committee with nothing to propose.

A strong paper, annotated

More than half of the world's refugees are children, yet refugee enrollment lags far behind global averages at every level of schooling. The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees committed member states to including refugees in national education systems, and Sustainable Development Goal 4 promises inclusive education for all, but implementation remains chronically underfunded and uneven across host states.

Same length as the weak version, entirely different density: a framing fact, two named UN instruments, and a precise statement of why the problem persists (implementation and funding, not principle). This sets up everything that follows.

Kenya speaks on this topic from experience, not theory: it hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Africa, concentrated in the Dadaab and Kakuma camps. Under the Refugees Act of 2021, Kenya committed to integrating refugees into national services, including education, and it has piloted the inclusion of refugee learners in the national curriculum and examinations. Kenya therefore holds that refugee education is not a parallel system to be run by agencies alone, but a national responsibility that host states must be funded to carry.

A named law with a date, named places, and a position that only Kenya could write. Note the last sentence: it converts the record into a stance, and that stance has a built-in ask (host-state funding) that previews the solutions.

Kenya proposes, first, a host-state education compact under which states that include refugees in national school systems receive multi-year, per-student support administered through UNHCR's education programming rather than annual emergency appeals; and second, a standardized framework for recognizing refugee students' prior learning and examination credentials across borders, developed with UNESCO, so that displacement does not erase academic progress. Kenya invites fellow host states, particularly in Africa, to co-sponsor language to this effect.

Two proposals, each with an actor, a mechanism, and a funding logic, either of which could be pasted into a draft resolution as operative clauses. The closing sentence does committee work in advance: it names the bloc this delegate intends to build.

The gap between these papers is not writing talent. It is one filled-in country research worksheet and the discipline to cut every sentence another delegation could have written.

How chairs actually read these

Picture the reader honestly: a chair with dozens of papers, reading the night they are due. The skim pattern is consistent. Header first, to match paper to country. Then the position section, hunting for anything specific: a law, a vote, a named program. Then the solutions, checking whether they are concrete enough to shape debate. The background section mostly gets confirmed as present rather than read.

That reading pattern is the whole strategy: put your research where the chair looks for it, keep the background short, and make the solutions quotable. Research awards tend to go to the paper the chair could imagine using to teach the topic; ties between delegates in committee tend to break toward whoever's paper showed the deeper preparation.

Five fixes that upgrade most papers

1. Run the swap test on every sentence. If another delegation could claim the sentence unchanged, replace it with a fact only your country can claim.
2. Name at least one UN instrument precisely. "The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees" beats "various UN resolutions" everywhere it appears.
3. Give every proposal an actor and a wallet. Who runs it, who pays for it. Proposals missing either one evaporate in committee.
4. End with your bloc. One sentence inviting specific delegations to work with you turns the paper into an opening move instead of a filed document.
5. Cut to the page limit from the background section. Never from past actions or solutions. The background is the only section nobody wins on.

From here, the paper feeds directly into the rest of prep: the solutions become your opening speech, and in committee they become clauses via the resolution guide. If this is your first conference, the two-week prep plan places the paper inside the full countdown.

Common questions

How long should a Model UN position paper be?

One page per topic is the standard at most US conferences, single spaced. Some conferences set their own limits (NMUN, for example, caps the whole paper at two pages covering both topics), so the background guide always wins.

Is a position paper written in first or third person?

Third person, in character: "Japan believes", "the Republic of Kenya has committed". First person ("I think") is the fastest way to signal a first draft written the night before.

What if my country has no clear position on the topic?

Build one from adjacent evidence: regional bloc positions, votes on related resolutions, treaties signed or avoided, and domestic policy. Small states rarely have speeches on record about every topic; they almost always have votes.

Do position papers need citations?

Check the conference. Many do not require them, some encourage footnotes, and a few (NMUN among them) prohibit citations entirely. Where allowed, citing UN documents by symbol reads far stronger than a bare source list.

Do position papers affect awards?

Yes, twice. Most conferences give a research or best position paper award judged on the paper alone, and many chairs use papers as the tiebreaker between similar delegates. Submitting on time is often a hard condition for award eligibility.