United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Dear Delegates,

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to KAMUN’27 and to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

My name is Ghazi Alwindawi, and I am honored to serve as your Chair. This year’s theme is a fractured international protection system. UNHCR sits at the center of that problem. It exists for people whose own states have failed to protect them.

I was drawn to this committee because displacement and statelessness show how much of a person’s life depends on legal recognition. Citizenship unlocks nearly every other right: education, work, healthcare, freedom of movement, and access to justice. When it is denied or taken away, those rights go with it. Few issues in international law expose the gap between what the law promises and what people actually experience as clearly as this one.

Our first topic, Statelessness and the Collapse of Legal Identity, asks what happens when a person’s citizenship is denied or revoked, and how the international community should respond when no state accepts responsibility for them. Our second topic, Refugee Protection and Repatriation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, asks whether return is a durable solution when the conditions that forced people to flee have not gone away.

As you prepare, I leave you with the words of Elie Wiesel: “No human being is illegal.”

I look forward to the arguments, ideas, and solutions you bring to this committee.

Best regards,

Ghazi Alwindawi

Chair, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

KAMUN’27