THE INVITATION

The Pace Law School International Criminal Court Moot Competition is open to the international law school community, welcoming law schools from disparate legal traditions to compete against one another in the context of a hypothetical criminal trial to be argued before the International Criminal Court.

THE COMPETITION IN BRIEF

Each team will submit three short memorials (briefs) requiring the students to research and develop arguments based on the three participants in ICC prosecutions, i.e., the Prosecution, the Defense and the Victims’ Advocates, a new role developed for the first time for the International Criminal Court. These memorials will be evaluated by legal scholars, and prizes will be awarded for best brief, second place runner-up, and third place runner-up in each of the three categories of memorials. Rules for participation by team coaches in the brief writing and oral argument phases of preparation are available on our web site. 

Perhaps the most exciting feature of the Moot, and one unique to this competition, is that each team of students will participate in three rounds of oral arguments and have the opportunity of arguing from all three perspectives, prosecutor, defense counsel and victims’ advocate. Students who participated in a trial run for the Moot last year all commented that they had never experienced a better way of learning the substantive and procedural law in a given area and fully developing the arguments of the parties than by having the opportunity to make those arguments from all three perspectives during the Moot.

REGISTRATION

The Pace International ICC Moot is open to all law schools, and we hope that your law school will be with us this year. The Rules and the Problem for the Moot are available online. If you are interested in competing, please contact PaceICCMC@gmail.com as soon as possible and complete the Registration Form which you will also find online.

ABOUT PACE LAW SCHOOL

Pace Law School, one of the six graduate and professional schools of Pace University, is located in White Plains, New York, in Westchester County, some 25 miles north of New York City. Directions for reaching the law school by air, car, or train are available online. The Law School is nationally and internationally recognized for the excellence of our Environmental and International Law Programs as well as our Clinical and Internship opportunities. We offer certificate and graduate programs in two specialties -- Environmental Law and International Law, Public and/or Private.

Pace Law School also boasts centers of excellence including the Pace Land Use Law Center, the Women's Justice Center, the Center for Environmental Legal Studies, the Energy Project and the Pace Institute for International Commercial Transactions. The Institute sponsors the internationally renowned Willem Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot each Spring in Vienna, an event in which you law school may have also participated. The Institute is also the creator of the most extensive and well-regarded web site on the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). More detailed information on these and other Pace programs may be found at http://www.law.pace.edu/legal_resources/centers.html