The Jessup Championship finals: the team of a university from the capital wins the right to go to Washington

The annual Russian stage of the renowned international law competition for law students – the Jessup Championship – successfully ended on February 5th. The finals of the national qualification round were held at the MGIMO, where the teams of Saint Petersburg State University and Mikhail Lomonosov Moscow State University competed for the right to go to Washington.

During this year’s contest, the students had to act as claimant and respondent in a dispute between two states on the subject of destruction of a cultural heritage object of special significance. In this connection, the participants had to exhaustively study the issues of international liability for use of force by the state taking part in an international humanitarian intervention, as well as the matter of who is authorized to represent the state at the international level right after the coup d’etat.

Leading Russian and foreign lawyers – international public law experts – Evgeny Zhilin, Associate Partner at the Firm, Manager of Foreign Projects, among them, acted as the judges of preliminary rounds-hearings.

Gilbet Guillaume of France, Judge, President of the French International Law Association, Nina Vajic of Croatia, Judge of the European Court of Human Rights, and Professor Michael Peil of the USA determined the winner.

Over 40 teams from all over Russia took part in the competition. The team of the students of the faculty of law of Saint Petersburg State University became this year’s winner. It is they who will represent Russia at the international rounds of the Championship on March 25 – 31 of 2012.

The Jessup Championship was established in 1959 as an international law competition held in the form of a staged trial – imitation of a case consideration by the UN International Tribunal. Nowadays the Championship is the largest and world-renowned court competition for students. Approximately 2000 students of over 600 law universities from 90 countries take part in the event. Teams from Columbia, South Africa, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Great Britain and the USA won the Championship during the last five years.

The Jessup Championship is organized worldwide by ILSA – the International Law Students Association with the support of the international law firm White&Case.