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More than 600 high school students from across the city put their diplomacy skills to good use this week as they drafted resolutions, plotted strategy, and negotiated with adversaries to resolve conflicts at the 2008 Catholic Students United Nations Assembly (CSUNA).

On Wednesday, the first full day of debate of the three-day UN simulation, professionally-dressed and articulate students from across the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) infiltrated every available meeting room at the Catholic Education Centre to sit down and peacefully resolve some of the global community's most pressing issues and conflicts.

Every member state of the UN was assigned a student delegation, who were then tasked with the responsibility to debate that country's best interests in the various committees of the UN, according to their assigned country's foreign policies.

Led by Co-Secretary Generals Claire Danukarjanto and Margaret Suen, both 17-year-old senior students at host school St. Joseph Morrow Park, the 300-delegate-strong general assembly tackled issues as varied as the promotion of gender equality, the elimination of HIV/AIDS, nuclear disarmament, global warming, and in one of their longest debates, the abolishment of child labour.

After more than an hour of heated rebuttals, students ultimately voted down a resolution to the latter based on the grounds that, in developing countries, families need every member of their households to chip in just to survive - including children.

The Bishop Allen Academy delegation representing Kenya argued that abolishment would be fruitless: "Children would still have to work; there's no way out of it. Kids would just have to go underground, to work under even worse conditions. By abolishing, you're not solving the problem, you're exacerbating it."

To many in the committee, including Karen Luong, a 17-year-old student from Msgr. Percy Johnson representing the African nation of Djbouti, the end result was a surprising and enlightening one.

"It's interesting to see the different points of view debated, because there's not just one opinion, there's many," the first-time delegate said. "At first, I thought everyone would vote to abolish child labour, but instead we resolved to improve working standards for those children. It was a good solution."

While the general assembly moved on to address the situation in Darfur, the 75-member economic and social committee was deeply engrossed in a best-practice discussion for the delivery of universal primary education, while the 25 delegates belonging to the commission on sustainable development wrapped up a genetically modified food debate, and the 15 members of the security council made a decision whether or not to invade Iraq.

Aside from the lofty issues discussed, the well-organized event was all the more impressive given it was a totally student-driven initiative, said St. Joseph Morrow teacher advisor Nancy Burrows.

"It was an enormous undertaking on the students' part," she said, noting that student organizers devoted two evenings a week since September to plan the event. "All too often we read bad things are happening at schools in the news - this is very positive.

"St. Joe's has been running this for the last 14 years, and as an all-girls school, it just goes to show that the leaders of tomorrow will be women."

Co-Secretary Generals Danukarjanto and Suen, would be counted among them, Burrows noted.

Both have participated in CSUNA since Grade 9, working their way up from delegate, to committee chair, to ultimately running the show this year.

For Suen, who hopes to pursue an education in social justice and international relations when she graduates this year, the experience has been a rewarding one.

"Just feeling the passion of the delegates fill the room, it's truly inspirational," she said.