Twenty-seven teams from 18 different countries gathered in Oxford last week to compete in the fourth Monroe E. Price International Media Law Moot Court Competition organised by the Programme in Comparative Media Law & Policy at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, part of Oxford University’s Faculty of Law.
Law students and their coaches came from the US, China, South Korea, the UK, Georgia, Ukraine, Greece, Serbia, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Kenya, UAE, Jordan, Bangladesh, Latvia, Singapore and Ireland. A 19th team from Sri Lanka took part in the submissions stage, but was sadly unable to attend the final event.
High profile judges and lawyers also came along to judge the dozens of matches at the event, including – to name just a few – Gavin Millar QC, Mr Justice Eady, Mr Justice Tugendhat, Gugulethu Moyo from the Media Legal Defence Initiative, ECHR judge Nina Vajić and Sir Louis Blom-Cooper. And of course, Professor Monroe E. Price, in whose honour the competition is named, was there too.
It really was an inspirational and exciting event, which included plenty of time for discussion too. I was there to assist with adminstration during the week and thoroughly enjoyed myself. This year’s Moot problem – the case the teams have to battle out through numerous rounds – can be downloaded here. It concerned freedom of speech in a digital era, in the fictional Republic of Garunesia. Find out more about the competition and how it works here. The inaugural Oxford-India Moot Court took place in December 2010.
I believe full results and photographs will be posted on on the official website in due course, but in the meantime, congratulations to the overall winners, the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and all other participants!