International students attended the Kyoto Congress Youth Forum

The United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (Congress), which is held once every five years, was scheduled to be held in Japan as the Kyoto Congress in April 2020 for the first time in 50 years. It was postponed from March 7th to 12th of the year. Prior to the Kyoto Congress, a youth forum was held on February 27 and 28, where young people from around the world discussed themes related to the agenda of the Congress. Six international students from Nagoya University attended this Congress.

Comment from a pariticipant (Tran Phuc Hai, 4th year student)
The Kyoto Congress Youth Forum was full of competent, enthusiastic youth and experienced panelists from a variety of different countries. The exchange of expertise from the panelists and innovations from the youth representative is invaluable, and, in my opinion, unique to Forum. I was surprised to learn that this is only the second time the Forum is held, as its potential to connect the U.N with the young generation and align policy changes with the real social consensus is considerable. In the future, I think such initiative can be broadened to match the scale of the Model United Nations as a forum for youth education of domestic policy and legal discussion, accompanying with what the Model United Nations provides – which is international relations discussion.

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