The experience of participating in the Jessup Moot Court Competition in 2022/2023How can one capture the essence of what it meant to be a mootie in a few paragraphs? To keep it – in the spirit of the Jessup – short and simple: It was a fine line between pleasure and madness.

12. Juni 2023, von Internetredaktion

With a group of seven people, consisting of three coaches and four mooties, we started the adventure. Although we already got to meet our teammates during an informal meeting with pizza and casual chit chat, the first day of practice was – at least from a mootie’s point of view – still quite nerve-wracking, as we strived to meet our coaches’ expectations and tried to figure out our fellow mooties. Nevertheless, the initial awkwardness was quickly overcome, and while we debated the existence of unicorns and mermaids during our first argumentative exercises, our coaches observed our individual and collective skills to determine applicants and respondents and our order of appearance.

The first time we all met in person was the morning after the problem was released. Although our coaches had advised us to read the problem beforehand, it is fair to say that we, the mooties, felt overwhelmed by the new setting and quite extensive problem. Despite that, we started to settle in and got used to our fellow mooties, coaches and our office. And that is when it hit us: This is it. This is our team and our case, the Case Concerning the Clarent Belt.

Developing a daily routine, we tried to pinpoint the main problems of the case. We repeatedly went over the (overwhelming) details of the problem, drew up timetables and Paul designed a map of the Gais Peninsula, being the main area of our conflict. After these first steps, we dived deep into the process of drafting our memorials. Although the 17th of January was still months away, we could already feel the deadline breathing down our necks.

The following weeks were filled with a lot of research, sometimes successful and sometimes frustrating, and with each ending week, the final deadline drew closer. Weekly highlights were our coach-meetings on Thursdays where we talked about problems that occurred during the week, did oral exercises, and began to develop an idea of what it meant to be an agent for our respective state. On other occasions our research was interrupted by alumni coming by our office to help us with legal questions or simply to keep our spirits up.

A very welcome interruption of that time was our trip to The Hague in the beginning of December. After weeks of research, we had access to THE library and made good use of it. This meant 8 hours of intense research in the Peace Palace Library followed by a tour of the institution in front of which we were (kind of) going to plead our case just three months from there. Of course, this was of great value for our memo and our spirits, but we also took advantage of the chance to get to know each other even better although we did have quite heated debates over playing “werewolf” in the evening.

The workload intensified and as each one of us delved deeper into our roles as applicant and respondent it became increasingly hard to settle on one solution. Nonetheless, we quickly learned to appreciate the different viewpoints and to use it as an advantage. The weeks and months went by quickly and soon the first big deadline was approaching. The complexity of the case nearly drove us crazy, making us question every word of the statement of agreed facts. Beneath each stone we turned the floor was crawling with questions and when we followed those questions, we eventually found another stone.

The Christmas holidays were spent with our families, but still the case barely let us rest. We needed to finalize the missing parts of our memorials, add footnotes, and shorten it to 10.000 words. The latter being quite painful as our memorials had blown up to more than 250 pages up until then. We had endless zoom meetings and met each other’s family members who sometimes popped into our rooms, bringing snacks and waving into the camera.

Returning to Hamburg we only had an idea about how intense the last three weeks before the deadline could be but the thought of having that fixed date in front of us kept us going. The last days were all hands-on deck: Everyone was working on everything, trying to finish the memorials with our coaches constantly by our side to support us legally and emotionally. After submitting our memorials with just a few seconds to spare, we ended the day with a glass or two, great company and astonishing performances.

It felt like a big chapter had ended, and in some way that was the case, but new tasks were just about to emerge when the preparation for the oral rounds started. After a few days of rest, we started to prepare our pleadings and had to see them being disassembled by the questions of our coaches. The main goal was to firstly stay within the allocated timeframe and on the other hand to answer all questions smart, precisely, and correctly. To use two different kinds of enumeration is - as the reader might have sensed – not good.

We really struggled to be up to the task when our coaches bombarded us with questions, but they were our coaches after all and had committed to us through good times and bad. Nevertheless, our first bench filled with “externals” was of course particularly nerve-wracking and we were riddled with questions. And although we never thought it would, it got easier (despite being blessed with shaky knees and bright red heads) with every helpful feedback and the valuable experience, but also by meeting some practitioners and former participants who shared their experience with us.

Having had intense weeks of training we arrived in Berlin, where the German National Rounds were hosted by the Hertie School of Governance. As we arrived, we were filled with a whole bucket of emotions: anxiety, anticipation, but most of all, we were excited, especially as it was held – for the first time in years – in person again. Between meeting other mooties, coaches, judges and also some alumni, there was barely time to prepare for the upcoming pleadings. Nonetheless, by working as a team we were able to convince the bench in the preliminary rounds on Thursday and Friday and moved on to the quarterfinals. In an early morning session, by a close split decision the University of Kiel emerged as the winner, bringing our journey in the Jessup Competition to an end.

Although this time was as challenging as it was rewarding, we are grateful for the experience and our coaches, who buried themselves in work to organize mock-pleadings, motivate us and to support us in so many ways. None of us would have made it without the others and with that we await the new mooties to pass on all those haunting questions but also all the experience we gained along the way.