Rahul Sharma (Editor)

International Criminal Court Moot

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The International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition or ICCMCC is an annual international moot court competition on international criminal law that is held at The Hague and organised by the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden University, The Hague Campus, with the institutional support of the International Criminal Court. The first edition of the competition was in 2005, but it only became an international competition in 2007. Previously known as the ICC Trial Competition, the moot is now held in four languages: English, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish, with the English edition attracting the most number of teams.

Judges of the competition include ICC judges and officers, and teams have to present arguments based on a fictitious problem via the roles of prosecution counsel, defence counsel, government counsel, or victim's representative. The arguments made usually relate to pre-trial or appeal proceedings. Each team is given 20 minutes for the main submissions and 10 minutes for rebuttal. For the English edition of the moot, each country can only send two to three teams to participate; where necessary, regional rounds are organised to select the top two to three teams. Regional rounds have been held for North America, India, and China.

In 2013, semi-final rounds were introduced for the top nine teams, with the top three teams proceeding to the championship final. In 2015, the number of preliminary rounds were increased from three to six, and in 2016 quarter-final rounds were introduced for the top 27 teams.

The international rounds programme includes visits to the various international tribunals at The Hague.

References

International Criminal Court Moot Wikipedia