Jessup 2015

From the 4th to the 8th of March 2015 the German National Rounds of the Philip C. Jessup Moot Court took place in Heidelberg.

The University of Jena participated in the competition with a five-members team: Julian Werner and Claudia Muttin, representing the Applicant (the Federal Republic of Agnostica), Jule Krämer and Luise Mehenert, representing the Respondent (the State of Reverentia), and Julius Weber, serving as bench counsellor for both sides.

The competition lasted for four days. On the first evening all the twenty-one German teams were welcomed by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law with an opening event, a first great occasion to meet other participants, coaches and professors. At the end of the evening, decisions had to be made: sleeping or perfecting the arguments one last time? No doubts on the answer.

In the following days we pleaded our arguments five times (twice on the Applicant side, and three times on the Respondent side). Passionate speeches were made before the team entered the arena. No notes, a worn folder packed with sources, your teammates sitting next to you – far enough to look professional, close enough to feel that you’re not alone – and your coaches sitting behind you – no comments, no whispers, at most a couple of pencils snapped to kill the tension. “All rise”, and the judges take their seats, all you can do now is embrace the moment.

At the end of the second day, after a dinner organized for all the teams, the Octo-finalists were announced. Jena was among them and on the following day we pleaded as Respondent against the team from the Humbold-Universität Berlin. Unfortunately we did not move to the semi-finals.

In the final, LMU München faced HU Berlin, and the latter won the competition. The winner and all the teams were celebrated during a final dinner. The last evening in Heidelberg also represented a nice occasion to meet the persons that served as judges in the competition, including professors, a former ICJ judge, and former Jessup competitors.

It has to be noted that the competition lasted four days, but if you ask the team and its coaches ,it lasted at least five months (that actually felt like twelve). The experience that absorbed the “counsellors” of Agnostica and Reverentia culminated in Heidelberg in the best pleadings the team experienced. It all started with five students and their coaches, it all ended with enthusiasm, rush, goose bumps, and sense of belonging.

The 2015 competition gave us lots of opportunities: learning a lot about the 2015 topic (treaty interpretation and applicability in the face of changed circumstances, the propriety of counter-measures, and procedural and substantive issues raised by the secession of a province from one country and its annexation by another), sharpening our legal minds, discussing arguments at every time of day and night and in every corner, hallway, room of the University, transforming colleagues into family, the library into a home, arguments into beliefs and vice versa.

What is a moot court like the Jessup competition about? Maybe it’s all about meeting other people that love the law as much as you do, learning how to fight for your ideas, when to question them, and how to combine knowledge of the law, passion, and creativity.

The gratitude of the team goes to Professors Burke, Ohler and Ruffer, Dr. Judit Beke Martos, Annelie Gallon, Jens Kaiser, Petrea Klein, Michael Werner, Lisa Zermann and to all the people that in the last decades helped to keep alive the commitment of the University of Jena towards the learning-experience that the Jessup competition represents.