Jessup journey: The beginning
When a dream can be lived, anything seems to be pacifying. If it is for a moot loving law student, only Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition (JESSUP) thrives golden dream. We, the team of University of Dhaka consisting of two mooters Romana Afroze and I, Ragib Mahtab and the researcher Moniruz Zaman, has pursued this dream after a long struggle of four months preparing the memorials.
The First ever National Round of Bangladesh of Philip C. Jessup Moot Court Competition 2017 which took place on 16-18 February 2017. The Programme was jointly organized by the Bangladesh Chapter of Asian Society of International Law (AsianSIL Bangladesh) and the Northern University Bangladesh (NUB) in collaboration with the International Law Students Association. This is the 58th year of Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition 2017 and for the first time any institution from Bangladesh has represented. The young legal minds of the country met with the national icons of the legal arena where 14 Universities participated. There were 17 Judges at the Preliminary Round who are promising academicians, advocates and judicial officers.
At the preliminary rounds each team had to compete against four different universities and after a long day we qualified to Semi-final along with four other teams. For the first time any moot competition of Bangladesh applied the round point system Right from the preliminary round until the final round it was a journey of thrill and experience and the hearts accompanied by cardiac murmurs. University of Dhaka dominated the preliminary round and qualified for the semifinal securing the highest mark. It was the first time in Bangladesh all the hon’ble judges of Semi-Final Rounds were from the hon’ble Judges of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. We had to argue both in favour of applicant and respondent against the same team in semi-final. After a long battle of semi-final the top two teams qualified for the final round- Eastern University and University of Dhaka. The Final rounds of the Competition were presided over by Mr. Justice Mirza Hussain Haider, hon’ble judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. The other two hon’ble judges were Mr. Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, hon’ble Judge of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and Prof. Dr. A.W.M. Abdul Haq, Dean, Faculty of Law, Northern University Bangladesh. At the end of three hours long final session representing both applicant and respondent the final result was announced. Through unique and much appreciated marking system of Jessup Competition though we got more marks even then ended up being the runners as the winner team, i.e. Eastern University Bangladesh secured more round points than us. Being Runner up we were actually disheartened but all agreed that this is supposed to be the evaluation process since the organizers maintained fairness in every sector. Even ‘the Spirit of the Jessup’ was also decided by the participants. Our agony was soon pacified as we bagged both best memorial and best mooter award and also knowing that we qualified for the international round which provided us opportunity to represent our country in the international platform which was so far a dream for any mooter of Bangladesh.
Jessup experience is unlike anything else that law school offers. It gives you startling international exposure, challenges you to master a new area of law, develops your legal writing and oral argumentation skills and, most importantly, to practice pleading before a real court. Endless excruciating hours of preparation, the extent of the case (the Compromis) in Jessup is extremely wide with lots of contemporary issues. This requires extraordinary devotion, focus and, obviously, time.
Now we are awaiting the day when we can really represent our country to the world in the largest legal battle concerning some contemporary issues of which some are even relevant with regard to Bangladesh’s context.
The writer is a student of law, University of Dhaka.
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