"The International Court of Justice is now in session"

The University of Münster took again from August 2022 to March 2023 at the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. This is the most traditional, renowned and largest student moot court in the world. It has been held since 1959 and now students from almost 600 universities from over 80 countries around the world participate every year.

The Jessup Moot Court consists of a simulated court case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which deals with an international legal dispute between two fictional states. The participating teams represent both the plaintiffs’ and the defendants’ side. The participating students must first prepare and present pleadings. After that, the participants compete against each other in oral proceedings. The role of judges: women take over professors, diplomats, lawyers and other practitioners, including judges of the ICJ and other international courts.

Both the pleading phase and the oral phase are completed in English. Thus, the participants not only develop profound knowledge of international law, but also expand their English language skills. In addition, students train skills that are very useful in their studies and throughout their professional life. In the written phase, the participants learn to deal in depth with a comprehensive fact, to evaluate it and to do legal research on this basis. Unlike in the course of studies, the entire work has to be done with the facts and the entire research in a partisan manner. Thus, the students learn to develop argumentation structures for the party, which they represent in the specific case by lawyer, and to present these arguments both in writing and orally in a structured and comprehensible manner. In the competition, rhetorical skills are added in the presentation of the prepared plea as well as in the spontaneous answering of critical questions on the part of the judges' bench. Finally, the Jessup Moot Court offers the advantage of coming into contact with students, professors, judges and other practitioners from all over Germany and from all over the world.

This year, the students Isabel Kießling, Jonas Schunert, Şare Deniz and Carlotta Musiol competed for the University of Münster. The coaching of the team was taken over by the research associates Leonie Brinkmann and Max Milas. In terms of content, the issues to be dealt with by the students, as well as in recent years, have been highly topical. It contained problems with the interpretation of a peace treaty (1), fatal attacks in a supposedly occupied territory (2), on unilateral economic sanctions (3) and on the legal consequences of the faulty disposal of toxic waste (4).

The team's preparation phase began in September with some team-building and rhetoric exercises in Warendorf to be prepared for the following intense months. During the preparation of the pleadings, the team also travelled to The Hague in November 2022 and attended negotiations between the ICJ and the International Criminal Court, exchanged views with the IGH judge Georg Nolte and was a guest at the German Embassy. At the beginning of March 2023, the German National Rounds took place at the Hertie School in Berlin. The Münster team reached the 10th with two wins. Place of the 17 participating universities and thus just barely did not move into the quarter-finals. With their pleadings, the team was even able to use the 7th Reach space. The students of Münster were able to take a lot from their participation in the Jessup Moot Court and especially enjoyed the competition time in Berlin very much. In addition to the competition rounds, the team had the chance to exchange ideas with students from all over Germany and well-known international law scholars.

At this point we would like to thank the Freundeskreis Rechtswissenschaft and the Förderverein Fachschaft Jura for the generous financial support. We would also like to thank the law firms Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, Noerr and GÖRG for their financial help. A special thanks also goes to the chairs of Professor Markard, Professor Fowkes and Professor Lepsius, who have helped us a lot with their trial rehearsals. Without your support, successful participation in the National Rounds would not have been possible.

In June, the application phase for the Jessup Moot Court 2023/2024 begins. In terms of content, it will be about the right to political expression, statelessness, the right to nationality and the scope of the authority of the UN Security Council in the peaceful resolution of the conflict. Information on the Jessup Moot Court can be found on the homepage of ILSA, the website of the Chair of Prof. Dr. Petersen and in the Learnweb course Jessup Moot Court 2023/2024 (password: Jessup23). Questions about the Jessup Moot Court can be answered at any time to Leonie Brinkmann (brinkmann@uni-muenster.de) are directed.