The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was established in 1945 as part of the ratification of the UN Charter. As one of the United Nations’s six principal organs, the Security Council is unique among the committees offered at NHSMUN in its membership, scope, and power. The UN Security Council has 15 member states. Five are permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The other 10 members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms. The UNSC has a unique, preventive, and reactionary role in the UN. It is meant to respond to international crises and maintain international peace. In response to such crises, the Council can mandate decisive actions such as peace talks, mediations, negotiations, and meetings. Additionally, according to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Council can approve the use of force if there is no other way to maintain international peace. The Security Council can also deploy UN peacekeeping operations and impose sanctions on states. Only the UNSC has this power.

Nigeria is facing a severe security crisis driven by multiple armed groups operating across the country. In the northeast, the jihadist group Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency since 2009 with the goal of establishing an Islamic state and banning Western influences. In 2015, a faction of Boko Haram broke away and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, becoming the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). The Nigerian military had made some progress against both groups recently. However, 2025 brought a sharp reversal as ISWAP launched more than a dozen coordinated attacks on military bases across the Borne and Yobe states. Boko Haram has also resurged, carrying out attacks against civilian populations. Beyond the northeast, criminal gangs carry out kidnappings and raids in the northwest. The conflict has also had significant impacts on Christian communities in northern and central Nigeria, where attacks on villages, churches, and civilians have contributed to rising sectarian tensions and displacement. Furthermore, violence between farming and herding communities has escalated in the central region. Nigeria’s military is now deployed across two-thirds of the country and is stretched thin. Regional cooperation has also weakened after Niger withdrew from the Multinational Joint Task Force, a coalition that has been fighting Boko Haram around Lake Chad. More than two million people remain displaced by the insurgency in the northeast alone. Delegates will need to address the resurgence of jihadist violence in the northeast and how to best support Nigeria’s counterterrorism efforts while also restoring regional military cooperation and protecting the civilians caught in the middle of this multi-front conflict.

Cyber warfare is the use of digital attacks by governments, militaries, or groups acting on behalf of states to damage or destroy another country’s systems and infrastructure. These attacks can target power grids, water systems, hospitals, financial networks, and military communications. Once dismissed as a fringe concern, cyberwarfare has become a defining feature of modern geopolitical competition. Major powers have each built large and sophisticated cyber forces, treating digital warfare as a domain on par with land, sea, and air. State-sponsored cyberattacks have been used to disrupt civilian infrastructure, steal sensitive government and military information, fund weapons programs, and position adversaries for potential future conflicts. One of the central challenges of cyber warfare is figuring out who carried out an attack. Attackers can hide their origins through proxy networks, false identities, and by routing attacks through third-party countries, allowing governments to deny responsibility with relative ease. Unlike conventional warfare, there are no widely accepted international rules governing what can be targeted in cyberspace, and attacks on civilian infrastructure have occurred repeatedly without meaningful consequences. The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into both offensive and defensive cyber tools is accelerating the pace of this arms race and raising the potential damage of future attacks. The United Nations has debated frameworks for responsible state behavior in cyberspace for years, but deep divisions between major powers have prevented meaningful agreement. Delegates will need to work toward enforceable international norms for cyberspace while also accounting for how international law should adapt to future technological developments.