Writing the ELSA WTO Moot Court Case

From ELSA:

ELSA International invites proposals from prospective case authors to write the Moot Court Case for the 14th edition of the ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO Law.

EMC2 is a simulated hearing of a World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel. Teams of interested students from all over the world prepare written submissions for the complainant and the respondent of a fictitious case involving WTO law. Teams then travel to regional rounds where they compete against each other before a WTO dispute settlement moot court panel composed of WTO and trade law experts.

Case proposals will be evaluated by an Academic Board composed of WTO law academics, practitioners and staff of the WTO Secretariat. After acceptance of the case proposal by the Academic Board, the case author will work with the Academic Board to refine the issues presented in the proposal throughout July-August, before the launch of the competition with the publication of the case on September 18^th 2015. In addition to the initial moot case, the case author is also required to prepare written clarifications addressing questions raised by students on the case as well as a bench memorandum that includes the best arguments and counter arguments to legal and factual issues arising in the dispute (due in December 2015). The bench memorandum is used by all moot court panelists in the regional and final round to mark and grade the participants’ written and oral submissions. The case author would be invited to the WTO Secretariat in Geneva to judge the final oral round of the competition, along with distinguished WTO scholars and practitioners, in May/June 2016. Throughout this Moot Court Competition, the case author will work in close collaboration with distinguished members of the Academic Board and experts of the WTO Secretariat.

The purpose of the EMC² is to teach students about WTO law and the WTO dispute settlement system as well as to assist them in developing practical litigation skills. The Moot Court Case should enable students to engage with a realistic trade dispute raising legal issues under the WTO covered agreements. The proposal should outline the basis facts of the case as well as identifying the relevant WTO provisions. The selected author will then be required to submit within a short notice a more detailed moot case for review by the academic board.The Moot Case should provide a relatively balanced opportunity for legal arguments in favour of both the complainant and the respondent. Ideally, the Case would address legal issues raised but not resolved in the jurisprudence to date and provide the opportunity to study and argue existing case law. The resolution of the legal issues should not depend on an evaluation of complex evidence or data. The proposals will be evaluated on the basis of the novelty of the issues raised, along with the opportunities provided by the case for students to engage with the existing WTO jurisprudence.

The 2015 Moot Court case, written by Assistant Professor Nicolas Lamp from Queens University, Canada, is available here: http://elsamootcourt.elsa.org/the-case/. While the case is a good model for potential authors, you are encouraged not to repeat the issue in the previous year’s case.

Case proposals should be made to [email protected] by 15^th of July 2015. The case author would be notified after 2 weeks and begin work with the Academic Board to develop the case over the summer of 2015, before the case is launched on 18^th of September 2015.