Team win UK championship of the Jessup Moot

A team of students from The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London have won the UK championship of the Jessup Moot and will represent the UK in the international rounds of the competition in Washington DC.

This is the 57th year of the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. It is the world's largest moot court competition, with participants from over 550 law schools in more than 80 countries. The competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice, the UN's principal judicial organ.

The King's team, consisting of Raneem Asad (LLM), Kay Cheng (LLB, second year), Sara Ewad (PPL, third year), Cristal-Anne Low (LLB, third year) and YiKang Zhang (LLB, second year), has been working on this year’s exciting problem for several months. The case draws on controversial topics in international law, such as the admission of leaked evidence, human rights in the face of terrorist threats, espionage and cyber-attacks. In January 2016, they submitted written memorials, which were marked exceptionally highly. The team is coached by dedicated King’s alumni Aqeel Noorali (LLB 2010) and Mubarak Waseem (LLB 2014, current LLM).

In the oral phase of the national competition (12-14 February 2016), the team won all of their preliminary rounds against the University of Oxford, Exeter University, BPP and Strathclyde University, ranking in first place before the start of the knock-out stages. The team faced strong competition from Inner Temple in the quarter-finals, before beating Oxford in the semi-finals.

King’s was against the team from the London School of Economics in an engaging and challenging Grand Final, judged by a distinguished panel including Sir Michael Wood, the former FCO Legal Adviser, and Ian Forrester QC, the UK’s judge at the General Court of the European Union. The King’s team was victorious, with Raneem Asad winning the prize for ‘Best Oralist in the Grand Final’. Both the LSE and King’s will advance to the international rounds of the competition.

The team and coaches are very grateful for all of the support that they have received in preparation for the competition, including from Lucas Bastin and Andrew Carruth of Quadrant Chambers and King’s staff members, Dr Holger Hestermeyer, Dr Emily Hudson, Natasha Simonsen, Professor Guglielmo Verdirame, Dr Philippa Webb and Jonathan Worboys.