The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition provides law students with an opportunity to learn about contemporary public international law issues. In representing ficticious nations, students prepare written and oral submissions and present arguments as if before the International Court of Justice. First founded in 1959 by law students from Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Virginia, the Jessup has since grown to become the largest competition of its kind in the world. Osgoode Hall Law School became the first Canadian faculty to participate in the Jessup in 1961. This year some 1500 students from 47 nations participated in regional and national rounds of the competition.
McGill's team: Vikki Andrighetti, Christine Lonsdale, Kimberly Trapp, M. J. Fernandes (coach) and Sarah Geh |
This year's Jessup problem touched on many important contemporary international law issues. For example, one issue raised was the scope of a State's obligations when faced with competing extradition requests for an alleged war criminal: one from a co-equal State pursuant to a bilateral extradition treaty along with a simultaneous request from an international criminal tribunal.
The experiences of ad hoc international war crimes tribunals for both Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia provide recent historical examples upon which to draw inferences. However, the prospect of a permanent international criminal tribunal raises many thorny matters of jurisdiction and additional fundamental questions. Such current topics provide Jessup participants with unparalleled opportunities for research and scholarship in unsettled areas of international law.
This year's Canadian National Round was hosted by the University of Windsor in mid-February. Teams from McGill and l'Université de Montréal performed well, finishing 1st and 2nd respectively. In so doing, both teams advanced to the International Round of the competition in Washington, DC. This feat is somewhat extraordinary given that both teams were forced to produce the bulk of their written submissions during the less than favourable research conditions of the January ice-storm in Montréal. Students from the McGill Jessup team included Vikki Andrighetti, Sarah Geh, Christine Lonsdale, and Kimberley Trapp, while Geneviève Boulva, Chloé Charbonneau-Jobin, Nadine Ganesan, & Evanthia Toliopoulos mooted for U-de-M..
The International Round of the competition brought together students from 59 faculties earlier this April. McGill had the opportunity to compete directly with teams from the Philippines, Denmark, France, and Zambia in preliminary rounds. Between rounds, Jessup contestants enjoyed Washington's famous sign of spring - the splendour of native Japanese cherry trees in bloom.
Both McGill and l'Université de Montréal performed extremely well in preliminary rounds placing among the top 16 teams before the run-off rounds. Unfortunately, competition rules required that both Canadian teams run-off against each other. The round was one of excellent quality with both teams displaying a command of the law doing credit to their universities. While U-de-M was bested in the match, the team exemplified the true spirit of the competition in showing up to support McGill in following rounds. McGill went on to finish among the top 8 teams, bowing out after a close split-decision in favour of the National University of Singapore.
The eventual team winner of the 1998 Jessup was the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
Canadian schools gained additional honours for their written arguments at the Jessup. The Hardy C. Dillard Prize which is awarded for the best memorial went to the University of Calgary. Both memorials from U-de-M and McGill also finished well, placing11th and 12th respectively.
* Milton James Fernandes is a member of the New York State Bar Association.
volume 30 - numéro 9 - 15 mai 1998
