International Moot Court and the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition – 7075

Fall 2016
* Multi-semester course

The University of Minnesota Law School’s International Moot Court (IMC) Program is the international law component of the law school’s greater moot court program.  Students who participate in IMC learn basic principles of public international law through readings of seminal international law cases and other select readings.  Students apply these principles to their completion of written and oral advocacy exercises.

There are five phases to the IMC program.  The first is the introduction of core principles of public international law—the components with which every student must be familiar in order to undertake subsequent exercises.  This phase is largely completed by the end of the fourth week of the first semester.

The second phase of the program is the selection of Jessup team members.  Each year, one to three students carry over from the previous year’s Jessup team and one to two students are added from the previous year’s IMC competition to form the core of the current year’s Jessup team.  Additional positions on the Jessup team are filled at the end of week five of the first semester.  Prior to the finalization of the Jessup team, IMC students complete a legal memorandum on a matter with international legal implications and participate in two nights of oral arguments.  Selection to the Jessup team is based, in large part, on student performance in these exercises.

The third phase of IMC is the introduction of the IMC intramural competition problem (Compromis), on which those not participating in Jessup will work, and the introduction of more specific rules of public international law.  During this phase, students begin working on an international legal brief (Memorial), read select seminal cases in international law, and participate in small group exercises.  Second year Jessup team members participate in all IMC exercises through the end of the first semester.

The fourth phase of IMC begins in the second semester, with students focusing on completing Memorials and preparing for oral arguments.  In this phase, students are introduced to the conventions for international oral advocacy, as modified by the Jessup rules adopted for use in the IMC competition, and, with their partner(s), complete two drafts of their Memorial.

The fifth and final phase of IMC is the presentation of oral arguments in the IMC intramural competition.  Each student presents a minimum of two arguments in the IMC intramural competition, with those advancing to the semi-final and final rounds of the competition arguing additional rounds.  Those participating in the competition are considered for positions on the subsequent year’s Jessup team.