UPSA Law School to host esteemed J.H. Jackson moot court competition in March

The UPSA Law School is expected to host the regional rounds of the J.H. Jackson moot court competition in March 2023.

The contest, organized by the European Law Students Association and the World Trade Organisation(WTO), is the biggest moot court competition on WTO Law in the world.

The John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition is an international moot court competition on WTO law and takes place every year, with its first edition dating back to 2002. 

It was formerly known as ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO but was renamed in 2018 after the American professor of law John Howard Jackson.

The competition is structured into six regional rounds all over the world and a final oral round in which around 25 selected teams take part. Each edition of the moot court hosts around one hundred teams constituted of two to four law students.

Added to the above, the competition simulates a hearing of the WTO dispute settlement system with the teams preparing and analyzing a fictitious case created by specialists in WTO Law and presenting their arguments for both the Complainant and the Respondent.

Structure of the Competition

1. The Written Round

On the 15th of September, the new edition is launched and the Case is published. The teams taking part in the competition are given between four and five months to draft two written submissions of 35 pages maximum each, one for each side of the dispute.

This round is not eliminatory, and all the teams submitting the written submissions will take part in the Regional Rounds. There the scores of the written submissions will be added to the scores they will receive in their pleading.

2. The Regional Rounds

All the teams that submitted a Written Submission will proceed to one of the 6 Regional Oral Rounds, depending on their location, from February to May of the second semester of the Edition. They will then plead against each other in sessions of 2 hours 30, at least two times.

3. Final Oral Round

The 25 selected teams of the Regional Rounds gather in Geneva, at the WTO Headquarters, and at the Graduate Institute, where the Final Oral Round of the competition takes place at the end of June.

The Final Oral Round is structured similarly to the regional rounds.

Winners of the previous editions