International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Committee Profile

The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, is the organization within the United Nations focused on the topics of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Its aim is to guide nuclear energy development and technology worldwide towards safe and peaceful applications, rather than allowing the proliferation of military uses. For this conference, the IAEA will be covering the topics of the early deployment of thorium-based nuclear energy plants and the Iranian nuclear program compliance and monitoring. These topics should allow for a wide range of possible solutions, with both geopolitical and scientific issues to be addressed.

The issue of the Iranian nuclear program has been a long-standing diplomatic issue. Iran is not sanctioned by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to develop nuclear weapons, and the nuclear program has been repeatedly accused of enriching uranium to levels that would permit the creation of nuclear weapons. The proliferation of nuclear weapons is widely condemned by the international community. It accordingly looks for ways to monitor nuclear energy and avert new weapons programs. In light of the breakdown of the Iran Nuclear Deal, monitoring such a program in Iran has become a major priority.

For thorium-based nuclear energy plants, the committee will discuss this new and recently growing alternative form of nuclear energy to traditional plants that use uranium to generate power. Thorium-based nuclear power plants may show promise as a potentially safer form of nuclear energy, which conventionally has both safety and environmental drawbacks. However, this technology is in its infancy and is still the subject of significant research. In the past few years, thorium as nuclear energy has become significantly more feasible and tested in research reactors, making this an increasingly relevant topic as countries search for safe, reliable energy sources to make up for the phasing out of fossil fuels.

Chair Letter

Hello Delegates!

My name is Leyton Breese (He/him). I’m a second-year student at UCLA. I’m from Laguna Beach, California, and I’m planning on double-majoring in economics and history. Along with my involvement with Model UN here, I’m involved with the Daily Bruin student newspaper, where I write for the City and Crime beat. In my free time, I also love traveling to new places, games, and playing volleyball.

I’ve participated in Model UN since sixth grade. As a delegate, I’ve competed across a wide variety of committees, including GA committees, security councils, and crise committees. I especially enjoyed historical crises, which allowed me to reenact some of the conflicts and periods of history most interesting to me. Besides these, I also really enjoy economic and science GA topics, like ths committee. I’ve explored hosting conferences by staffing my high school’s SOCOMUN conference as a chair and rapporteur. Since joining UCLA’s Model UN program, I’ve helped the previous year’s BruinMUN as a backroom staffer, and in UCLA’s college-level conference as a dias staffer. I’m looking forward to working as a senior staffer this year, as well as beginning to compete at conferences.

I’m very excited to meet all of you and have a great committee this fall. I think that the IAEA committee will be able to cover a lot of really interesting and relevant issues about new developments in safe energy. Additionally, these topics also involve the risks caused by contemporary geopolitical crises, which add to the importance and urgency of the problems we will be discussing and trying to solve. I can’t wait to read and hear all about the creative solutions you come up with together, and I hope that you will find BruinMUN to be an interesting and a fun experience!

Leyton Breese | Chair | BruinMUN 31

iaea@bruinmun.org