Australia Defeats Jamaica to Win the 2017 Jessup Cup

A team from the University of Sydney has won the 2017 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, defeating a team from the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica. The final panel was composed of two sitting judges of the International Court of Justice, Judge James Richard Crawford and Judge Patrick Lipton Robinson, and a former judge of the International Court of Justice, Judge Bruno Simma, who served on the ICJ from 2003-2012. It is rare that each of the competing teams had a judge of its own nationality on the final round bench -- Judge Robinson is from Jamaica and Judge Crawford is from Australia.

This year's competition was by all accounts one of the best run and most competitive years. The problem was authored by Professor Jeffrey Brooks of Louisiana State University.

Jessup is the world's largest moot court competition, with participants from over 640 law schools in more than 95 countries. The Competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. One team is allowed to participate from every eligible school. Teams prepare oral and written pleadings arguing both the applicant and respondent positions of the case. For more information about the Jessup competition, click here.

Many readers of this blog are Jessup alumni. Please do your part and make a small (or large) financial contribution to support the world's largest and most prestigious moot court competition.

(mew)