What is the educational level for participants in this competition?

The competition is designed for college-level participants.

What is the format of the competition?

The competition is an international moot court event, implying both written and oral components.

3rd Justice Hidayatullah International Moot Court Competition (HIMCC) 2026

Mar 13–15, 2026Nava Raipur, IndiaIn-person

ConcludedRegistration closed

The 3rd Justice Hidayatullah International Moot Court Competition (HIMCC) 2026 is an international moot court event hosted in Nava Raipur, IND. This competition provides a platform for college-level participants to engage with complex legal issues in a simulated court setting. It emphasizes the development of legal research, argumentation, and advocacy skills among aspiring legal professionals.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the dominant committee topic. Click through for the full country profile.

India

Host nation, promoting legal education and international legal discourse.

Role in topic

As the host country, IND plays a significant role in facilitating international legal education and exchange through events like HIMCC. Its legal institutions contribute to the global legal community by providing platforms for students to hone their skills and engage with international legal issues. The competition also reflects IND's commitment to fostering legal excellence and cross-border legal understanding.

Topics & background

The history behind each committee topic and the states that shape it.

The Global Clean Energy Transition

The push for clean energy has accelerated since the 2015 Paris Agreement, which committed parties to limiting warming to well below 2°C, and gained renewed urgency after the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact and the 2023 UAE Consensus at COP28, which for the first time called on states to transition away from fossil fuels. Technological cost declines in solar, wind, and battery storage have made renewables the cheapest source of new electricity in most markets, while the International Energy Agency's 2023 Net Zero Roadmap projected that tripling renewable capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 are essential to keep 1.5°C within reach. The core dispute is over pace, financing, and fairness. Developed economies have pressed for rapid phase-down of unabated coal and methane controls, while many developing states insist on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, demanding concessional finance, technology transfer, and recognition that their per-capita emissions and historical contributions are far smaller. Industrial policy has also become contested: the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, the EU Green Deal Industrial Plan, and China's dominance in solar PV, batteries, and critical minerals processing have triggered trade frictions, including tariffs and WTO complaints over subsidies and export controls. Today the agenda centers on scaling clean-energy investment in the Global South (currently a fraction of what the IEA estimates is needed), reforming multilateral development banks, securing critical mineral supply chains, and operationalizing the COP28 pledges on renewables, efficiency, and the Loss and Damage Fund. Nuclear power, green hydrogen, and carbon capture remain politically divisive within the broader clean-energy basket.

Key players

Environmental Sustainability and the Planetary Boundaries Agenda

Environmental sustainability as an international policy concept traces to the 1972 Stockholm Conference, the 1987 Brundtland Report's definition of sustainable development, and the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which produced the UNFCCC, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. The 2015 adoption of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals integrated environmental protection with poverty reduction, while UNEP assessments have repeatedly warned that humanity is breaching planetary boundaries on biodiversity loss, biogeochemical flows, and climate change. The core disputes are about burden-sharing and enforcement. The 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework set a '30x30' target to protect 30% of land and seas by 2030 but left financing unresolved; the 2023 BBNJ ('High Seas') Treaty awaits widespread ratification; and negotiations on a Global Plastics Treaty stalled at INC-5 in Busan in late 2024 over caps on primary plastic production, dividing high-ambition states from major petrochemical producers. Deforestation, fisheries subsidies, and transboundary pollution continue to expose tensions between sovereignty over natural resources and shared ecological responsibility. Current debates focus on closing the biodiversity finance gap, mobilizing the GBF Fund, completing plastics negotiations, integrating Indigenous and local community rights into conservation, and aligning trade rules — such as the EU Deforestation Regulation and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism — with WTO obligations and the development priorities of exporting states.

Key players

Climate Justice and Equitable Burden-Sharing

Climate justice frames the climate crisis as fundamentally one of inequity: the states and communities least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions are bearing the most severe impacts. The principle was embedded in the 1992 UNFCCC as 'common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities' and reinforced in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Small Island Developing States, organized through AOSIS, have been central in pushing the 1.5°C target and the recognition of loss and damage, culminating in the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 (Sharm el-Sheikh, 2022) and its operationalization at COP28 (Dubai, 2023). The core disputes are over historical responsibility, finance, and legal accountability. Developed states resist language implying liability or compensation, while vulnerable states and civil society demand that polluters pay. The 2009 Copenhagen pledge of USD 100 billion per year in climate finance was met only in 2022, years late, and the new collective quantified goal agreed at COP29 in Baku in 2024 — at least USD 300 billion annually by 2035 — was denounced as inadequate by India, the African Group, and AOSIS. Parallel legal tracks have advanced: the 2024 ITLOS advisory opinion confirmed that greenhouse gases are marine pollution under UNCLOS, and the ICJ delivered its advisory opinion on states' climate obligations in 2025 following a campaign led by Vanuatu. The contemporary agenda centers on scaling and reforming climate finance, ensuring Loss and Damage Fund disbursements reach affected communities, recognizing the rights of climate-displaced persons (building on GA Resolution 76/300 on the right to a healthy environment), and translating advisory opinions into enforceable obligations.

Key players

The Contemporary Fragmentation of International Law

Modern international law is built on the UN Charter (1945), the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), and a dense network of regimes covering trade (WTO), the sea (UNCLOS), human rights, and international criminal accountability (Rome Statute, 1998). For decades after the Cold War, the system appeared to be consolidating, with expanding jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals and growing acceptance of norms such as the Responsibility to Protect, endorsed at the 2005 World Summit. The core contemporary dispute is over the system's coherence and authority. Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine was widely characterized as a manifest violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter; the ICJ issued provisional measures against Russia and, in separate proceedings, against Israel under the Genocide Convention regarding Gaza. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for senior officials including Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, prompting sharp pushback and, in 2025, U.S. sanctions on ICC personnel. The WTO Appellate Body remains paralyzed, and major powers increasingly invoke national security exceptions to justify unilateral measures, fueling debate about selective application of the rules-based order. Today's agenda includes Security Council reform, the use of the veto in atrocity situations, the recently adopted ILC draft articles on crimes against humanity, the BBNJ Treaty, negotiations on a UN cybercrime convention and on autonomous weapons, and the proliferation of advisory opinions (ICJ on climate and on the Occupied Palestinian Territory; ITLOS on climate) that are reshaping state obligations without formal treaty change.

Key players