Inaugural Caribbean-China International Moot Court Competition

International Mooting And Competitions

The UWI Cave Hill Faculty of Law has a distinguished history of participation in international moot court competitions. The Faculty has for many years participated in several international mooting competitions, most notably in the Washington College of Law, Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition, the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition and the Caribbean Court of Justice International Moot Court Competition.
 
Students are selected through a preliminary mooting competition open to all second and third year law students, on the basis of both written and oral assessment. Once selected the students are trained through a series of intensive workshops on research skills, memorial writing skills, memorial formatting skills, and oral advocacy skills.  Students then participate in an international moot competition. 

For the latter they are required to submit written legal arguments and present oral arguments as either appellants and/or respondents before a panel of lawyers, academics and judges.

 

WCL Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition

The UWI Cave Hill Faculty of Law currently participates in three international moot court competitions. WCL Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition The Washington College of Law of American University hosts the annual Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition, in Washington, D.C., USA.

The WCL Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition is a unique trilingual (English, Portuguese, and Spanish) competition on the Inter-American human rights legal system. The Competition focuses on cutting-edge current topics that are being debated within the Inter-American system.
 

The Competition boasts participation of over 100 teams from around the world stretching from the Caribbean, to South and Central America, to Mexico, the US, Canada, Europe and Asia.  To date, the Cave Hill Campus is the only English speaking team to have ever won the competition (2004 & 2014). In addition, Cave Hill Campus was the first English speaking team to ever make the semi-finals (2003).  Cave Hill is also distinguished by having produced the most winners of the best Oralist in English award as well as a number of Best Memorial in English awards.
 

Inter-American Sustainable Development Law Moot Court Competition

The Inter-American Sustainable Development Law Moot Court Competition is a moot court competition hosted the Tulane Law School with the Payson Center, in collaboration with Universidad de los Andes and FGV Direito Rio.While the main theme is sustainable development, the competition necessarily draws from other areas of law, including human rights, energy, and environmental law. The Competition can be held in either Bogota, Colombia or Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Participants come from the entire region of the Americas and the Caribbean.




The inaugural 2011 event was the first international, multi-lingual moot court competition held in South America. In 2013, the UWI Cave Hill team at its inaugural participation placed third in the competition and was awarded the Best Memorial for the State and the highest memorial score in the competition. The UWI team also was named People’s Choice of Best Team in the Competition that took place in Bogota, Colombia. In 2014, the Cave Hill Campus made a clean sweep of the top prizes to emerge overall winners of the Competition’s 4th installment, which took place in Rio de Janeiro. In so doing Cave Hill became the first English speaking team to win the competition.

Cave Hill also won the Best Written Memorial, the Best Delegation, the Best Oralist in the finals as well as the Best Oralist of the overall competition.

 

Caribbean Court of Justice International Moot Court Competition

The Caribbean Court of Justice International Moot Court Competition is a Competition hosted by the Caribbean Court of Justice in Port of Spain, Trinidad. The competition was inaugurated in March 2009 and it focuses on the Court’s original jurisdiction under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.

The participants come from the regional law schools (where students usually have an extra year or two of legal training)including, the Eugene Dupuch Law School (The Bahamas), the Norman Manley Law School (Jamaica), and the Sir Hugh Wooding Law School (Trinidad & Tobago). 




Participants also come from regional faculties of law including the Department of Law of the University of Guyana, the Faculties of Law of the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill, Mona and St. Augustine) and the Faculty of Law of the University of Technology (Jamaica).

In 2012 the Cave Hill Team was the first Faculty of Law to ever win the Competition, and was also was the first recipient of the Prize for the Best Academic Institution.