John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition, 22nd Edition (2023/2024)

After taking second place in the European Regional Round of the John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition in Lisbon, the two double-degree students Elisa Lunardon and Sophie Martin achieved the excellent third place in the Competition’s World Final Round, which took place in Geneva from 18 to 22 June 2024. We warmly congratulate them both on this impressive success!

120 teams from all over the world came together during the 22nd Edition of the John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition to plead a fictional GATT case in front of WTO panels. 24 teams qualified for the World Final Round in Geneva. The UZH team successfully competed against the teams from the Universidad Javeriana (Colombia), Georgetown University in Washington DC (USA) and National Taiwan University (Taiwan). They were only eliminated by the outstanding team from the University of Kiev (Ukraine), which ultimately took first place in the final against the equally brilliant team from Strathmore University (Kenya).

The UZH team’s achievement is even more remarkable given the fact that it was the only team with only two members; most of the other teams consisted of four members. Elisa Lunardon and Sophie Martin therefore had to do more individual work and present considerably longer pleadings. However, their hard work paid off with this brilliant 3rd place. Moreover, Sophie Martin won “best oralist” both in the Grand Final of the European Regional Round in Lisbon and in the Preliminary Rounds of the World Final Round in Geneva.

A big thank you goes to Aliénor Nina Burghartz, employee and doctoral candidate at the Institute for International Law and Comparative Constitutional Law, who coached the team excellently, and to Johannes Rohrmann, employee at the the same institute, who also supported the team.