Five postgraduate students from the university Law School took part in the 2014 International Criminal Court Trial Competition, completing written submissions of arguments from here in the UK, and then travelling to The Hague to compete in three oral moots in the Netherlands.

The Warwick team explained;

“The written rounds consisted of several months of research culminating in the team producing three written memorials of 10,000 words each. Then, after a few months of preparation for the oral rounds, the team travelled to the Netherlands to compete in three moots.”

One of the speakers for the team, Daniel Jacklin, explained;

“The moots consisted of 20 minutes of submissions from each of three parties as is the custom at the International Criminal Court. The Defence spoke first, followed by the Prosecutor and then the Council for the Government of the defendant. The teams were then given 10 minutes rebuttal time to respond to the other teams submissions.”

The team competed against universities from around the globe including some universities for whom this was their first time at what is now a truly global competition. The competition has grown in size in recent years and now has universities from every continent in the world competing in the competition.

The results for the competition saw Warwick achieve some of its highest scores to date with speaker Daniel Jacklin commenting that;

“I competed in the completion in my undergraduate second year here at Warwick when the competition was relatively new to the universities' mooting calendar. This year the team achieved an impressive 95/100 on its written prosecution memorial with mooters achieving marks in the high 80s for their performances.”

On one final note the team said;

“I encourage all (undergraduate and postgraduate students) regardless of the legal discipline they wish to explore in their career to consider this competition. It is a fantastic mix of written and oral rounds which proves a fantastic experience for all the team involved in the Warwick team. The chance to compete against undergraduates, postgraduates, postdoctoral and qualifying legal professionals is a great opportunity for a mooter to expand his experience of legal advocacy at its finest!”

The high standard of advocacy of the competition was praised by organisers and despite some high scores Warwick fell short of progressing to the Semi-Finals which saw six teams whittled down to a final three. The team thanked Warwick Law School for their support and wish future Warwick teams good luck for 2015.

For more information on the ICC Moot, see their website.