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Background:
I have been the Commonwealth Moot Coordinator since 2000 and
travelled to London to run the 2005 Moot. It was held at the
Law Society's rooms (a mansion really) at 113 Chancery Lane.
The venues for the Moot at the Law Society were wonderful
rooms, very fitting for a moot. I arrived on 5th September
and in the week before the moot I spent some considerable
time each day at the Law Society preparing the venues with
the help of the staff and organising judges for the moots,
and at the QEII Conference Centre (where the CLC was held)
preparing for the Moot welcome before the beginning of the
CLC.
The Teams:
Eleven teams took part: United Kingdom - City University London,
Canada - University of Toronto, Australia - University of Melbourne, New Zealand - Canterbury University, India - West
Bengal University of Juridical Science Kolkata, Sri Lanka
- Sri Lanka Law College, Colombo, Caribbean - composite team
from the three Caribbean law schools, South Africa - University
of Pretoria, East Africa - University of Nairobi, South Pacific
- University of the South Pacific and Malaysia - University
of Malaya.
The Moot:
The welcome and material handover for the
moot was held at QEII Centre (opposite Westminster Abbey)
on Sunday 11th September from 4 pm. Most teams turned up as
requested on time. All except the Nigerian team eventually
arrived - the Nigerians had visa problems at the last minute
that prevented their attendance. From the welcome all teams
were invited to the Conference Reception at QEII. This was
paid for by the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, as was the
team's accommodation at Beit College Imperial College London.
This cost alone was £9,000.
The moot ran quite smoothly. I had no assistance
at all from the Law Society staff as far as organising judges,
teams and materials for each moot. It was very difficult as
the two venues were two floors apart and the only unsecured
internal access was a very slow, very small lift. I was exhausted
at the end of each day.
At the end of the moot, after the final, there
was a reception for the teams funded by the Commonwealth Legal
Education Association. This was held at the Law Society and
was outrageously expensive. The winners of the moot were the
Canadian team who were very polished and deserved to beat
the United Kingdom in the final.
The Commonwealth Law Conference:
The day after the moot finished I was one
of the speakers at a very well attended session on human rights
and the environment. I gave a paper entitled 'Environmental
Rights as Human rights'. I had in my audience the Chef Justices
of India, Lesthoto and Botswana, as well as judges from Australia,
other Indian Supreme Court judges and judges from the Court
of Appeal for England and Wales. The chair of my session was
Lord Justice Dyson. I was asked lots of questions and the
paper will eventually be published with other CLC papers.
I should say that I had been invited to talk, I did not send
in an abstract. I was invited following my visit to India.
At the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth
Law Conference I gave a short speech about the Commonwealth
Moot to about 1,000 people. I think it was well received.
Conclusion:
Besides being able to give a paper at one
of the largest law conferences in the world (there were almost
2,000 delegates) I was able to promote the Faculty to the
students, the judges and to the conference itself, and this
implants the name QUT in the perceptions of people overseas
as a progressive, competitive law school at which students
could obtain good undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications.
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London
Law Review Launch
International Mooting Competition
London's newest and most diverse journal of legal scholarship is proud to invite you to their first annual International Mooting Competition. It is the only journal of its kind in the UK, run entirely by law students from London's universities.
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