3/3!
IT’S THE HAT TRICK!
FOR A THIRD YEAR IN A ROW THE SCHOOL OF LAW OF THE NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
IS THE EUROPEAN CHAMPION OF THE “MANFRED LACHS” SPACE LAW MOOT COURT COMPETITION
THIS IS A WOLD RECORD FOR MOOT COURT COMPETITIONS!
There are truly no words to describe this year team’s performance at the International “Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court competition”!
The team of the School of Law represented Greece at the European Finals of the competition which took place between the 10th-12th May at the capital of Finland in Helsinki. The team became a European Champion for a third consecutive year! The team has also won the same distinction on the European Rounds last year (Glasgow 27th-29th April 2016) and the year before last year (Belgrade 1st-5th June 2015).
The Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition is organized by the International Institute of Space Law and by the European Centre of Space Law (ECSL) for the European Rounds, on annual basis. This year’s deals with interesting, complicated topics such as the undertaking of parallel space activities on common outer space grounds by different States, private commercial activities which arise in outer space and the use of outer space and other celestial bodies. Moreover, the case deals with complicated issues of Public International Law such as the withdrawal of one State from a multilateral treaty and the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice to adjudicate a case on ex aequo et bono basis (this year’s case can be found at http://www.iislweb.org/lachsmoot/).
The School of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens has participated in the competition for the past seven years (since 2011), with continuous high distinctions. The School is the World Champion of the Competition, since last year’s competition in Guadalajara, Mexico (2016). Specifically, the Faculty of Law has achieved the following in the past seven years:
- Participation in five (5) European Finals;
- Four (4) times European Champion in which three (3) of them are consecutive wins (2015, 2016, 2017);
- Three (3) times participant in the World Finals (not including this year’s participation);
- Has won once the World Championship (not including this year);
- Has won twice the second place in the World Finals (not including this year’s participation).
Furthermore, the success of winning the European championship for a third consecutive years is a unique distinction, not only for this particular competition but also for Moot Court competitions in general, according to the available statistics.
The members of the team that won this year’s European Rounds are Iliana Griva, Pelagia-Ioanna Ageridou and YvonneVastaroucha, all of them being undergraduate students at the School of Law. The team’s academic advisor is Dr. George D. Kyriakopoulos, Lecturer in International Law at the School of Law. Dr. Kyriakopoulos was successfully assisted in the preparation of the team by Ms Georgia-Eleni Exarchou, undergraduate student of the School, who was a member of the last year’s team and world champion in 2016 at the same competition.
The School of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens competed against the law schools of top European Universities. The team competed against the Universities of Hamburg and Rome in the preliminary rounds while in the semi-finals the law school of Athens faced the Luxembourg team. The final was carried out between the School and the Law School of the University of Helsinki. The three young ladies received astonishing comments regarding their performance by the judges. They were described as “professionals” and “innovative” while the judges were impressed by the depth and the resilience of their legal argumentation as well as their absolute knowledge of international and space law.
The team of the School of law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens will represent Europe in the World Finals which will take place between the 25th-29th September in Adelaide, Australia. The Athens teamwill compete against the winners of the regional rounds from America, Africa and Asia/Pacific.
The astonishing distinction of the School of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens marks a unique worldwide course of a intense academic process in order for this outcome to be achieved. This success proves once more that the School of Law students have an extraordinary passion for academic learning and research. It is worth noting that all the aforementioned distinctions have been achieved by different teams for each year.
These young ladies deserve our best efforts and assistance!
The team was kindly sponsored by the Foundation of State Scholarships (IKY), the Kassadra Bay Hotels – Skiathos, the Athens Bar Association and the Galaxidi Maritime Farms SA.
