Human Rights Council · Committee 02

Cyberbullying & Mental Health

UNHRC · 60 delegates · Intermediate

Cyberbullying Digital Rights Youth & Online Harm Free Expression

The United Nations Human Rights Committee is the treaty body that monitors state compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, with a mandate that increasingly reaches into the protection of fundamental rights in the digital age. At HTSMUN VI, it confronts the rapidly growing crisis of cyberbullying and its devastating impact on mental health — framed as both a public-health emergency and a human-rights violation.

As social media has become inseparable from daily life, online harassment has evolved into a borderless, permanent, and highly scalable form of harm that disproportionately targets youth, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and journalists. Delegates work from both a social and a technical lens, navigating the tension between protecting people from online harm and preserving rights like freedom of expression and privacy, and deciding how governments, international organizations, and tech companies can be held jointly accountable.

Topics

One harm. Two duties.

A borderless, permanent form of abuse meets two obligations at once: protecting people from online harm, and preserving free expression.

Topic A

Impact of Cyberbullying on Mental Health

Cyberbullying — the deliberate, repetitive use of digital platforms to harass, intimidate, or humiliate — has become a serious global mental-health concern, especially among adolescents. Unlike traditional bullying, it is unconstrained by geography or time, leaving victims perpetually exposed. Research ties it directly to anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and suicidal behaviour, with rates reaching 20–35% among Canadian youth and similar figures worldwide. Debate centres on how states can regulate harmful content without infringing free expression, how platforms like Meta and TikTok can be held to stronger accountability, and how to build coordinated international frameworks for digital literacy, reporting, and support — given that initiatives like UNESCO’s International Day Against Cyberbullying remain largely voluntary and unevenly implemented.

Sub-questions

  • How can states regulate harmful online content without infringing the right to freedom of expression?
  • What obligations should platforms like Meta and TikTok bear, and how can stronger accountability be enforced across borders?
  • How can the international community build coordinated frameworks for digital literacy, reporting, and victim support when current initiatives remain voluntary?

Starter Resources

  • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — the rights to expression, privacy, and protection from harm UN, 1966
  • UNESCO International Day Against Cyberbullying — the voluntary global awareness framework UNESCO
  • WHO Adolescent Mental Health Reports — the public-health evidence base WHO
Topic B

Topic B

A second topic will be released with this committee’s background guide this fall.

Sub-questions

  • Coming with the background guide.
Coming this fall Background Guide

Background guide ships this fall.

Written by the chair, the UNHRC guide will run a primer on the ICCPR and digital rights, brief the cyberbullying and mental-health topic, map the key instruments and platform-accountability debates, and set out the position-paper rubric.

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