The experience of participating in the Jessup Moot Court Competition in 2023/2024

10. April 2024, von Internetredaktion

Our Jessup journey started in July, when we found out, with whom we will spend the upcoming semester. With a group of seven people, consisting of three coaches and four Mooties, we started the adventure. Quickly afterwards we had a seminar weekend, during which we got introduced to some of the pleading and creative team building exercises the coaches had prepared for the upcoming time. Discussing the merits of coffee versus tea or the usefulness of an empty hand cream box versus a football, we got to know each other very quickly and grew together as a team which over time almost felt like a small family.

In the middle of September our Compromis got released, which we read with a mixture of excitement and a sense of urgency. At least as exciting was the day, when the coaches told us on which position we were going to plead: Smilla was our Applicant I, Dariush pleaded as Applicant II, Daniel built the first part of our Respondent team, as Respondent I, and last but not least Birte was our Respondent II. We then researched and wrote “our” parts of the memorial.

In the beginning of December, the trip to The Hague brought a nice variety to the increasingly longer weeks of memorial preparations. We enjoyed to research in the Peace Palace Library and even had the chance to see the court room of the ICJ – thanks to the engagement of our Coaches. That was very special. Another highlight was the table tennis table in the basement of the library as well as the quiz games evenings in the hostel after the research.

The week before Christmas gave us a first sense of how exhausting, challenging, but also team-building such a submission week can be. After Christmas there was not even a month left until the final submission of our memorials on the 12th of January. Like probably every Jessup-Team in that phase we had no problem to be busy during that time. Nonetheless, we were pleasantly surprised and also a little bit proud, that we were still able to create a calm and nice atmosphere in our Jessup office during those days. We finally submitted our memorials about 14 minutes before midnight and had a great little party afterwards.

After a few days off, we then started into the pleading phase. It was a very unique and sometimes challenging experience to plead every day, which let everyone of us grow in their personal way. During this phase, we learned an incredible amount, particularly in terms of rhetoric, through video analyses, rhetoric courses and, above all, the uncountable pleadings in front of professors, alumni and in numerous large law firms. Each of us has surpassed ourselves in our overall demeanour and we are very grateful for all the feedback, which is an enormous enrichment for us, that goes far beyond the moot court.

Then, in the end of February the final rehearsal of our pleading took place before we headed to Münster for the National Rounds. There, we experienced a cocktail of emotions: we were excited to show the bench, what we had prepared; interested to read the other team’s memorials; tired after a short night; happy to get to know new people; nervous, just before the pleadings started and – sometimes – confused by the questions of the bench but, most importantly, proud, that we did it in the end.

At the end of the day, we learned that we students can stand up to critical scrutiny with our arguments, even from renowned judges and advocates. And we were able to get to know the large, open, and warm Jessup community at numerous humid and cheerful evenings, to which we are now also very proudly belong to.