What is the eligibility level for participants in this competition?

This competition is designed for college-level participants, offering them an advanced platform to engage with international trade law.

Where are the final rounds of the competition held?

The final rounds of the competition are held in Geneva, CHE, providing an international setting for participants.

What is the primary focus of the John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition?

The competition primarily focuses on World Trade Organization (WTO) law, challenging participants to analyze and argue complex international trade disputes.

John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition – 24th Edition (2026)

Jun 23–27, 2026Geneva, SwitzerlandIn-person

Happening nowRegistration open

The John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition is a distinguished international moot court event centered on World Trade Organization (WTO) law. It offers an immersive experience for college students to engage with complex international trade disputes. Participants are tasked with analyzing a hypothetical case, drafting legal submissions, and presenting oral arguments before panels of WTO law experts. This competition provides a unique platform for students to develop their advocacy skills, deepen their understanding of WTO agreements, and network with peers and professionals in the field of international trade law. The event culminates in Geneva, CHE, bringing together participants from around the globe for the final rounds.

Country perspectives

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

Switzerland

As the host nation for the final rounds in Geneva, CHE, Switzerland provides the neutral ground for international legal discourse.

Role in topic

Switzerland, particularly Geneva, serves as a pivotal hub for international organizations, including the World Trade Organization. Its role as the host city for the final rounds of the competition underscores its commitment to fostering international law and diplomacy. The presence of numerous international legal experts and institutions in Geneva provides an ideal environment for such a high-level legal competition.

Topics & background

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

WTO Law and the Future of Multilateral Trade Adjudication

The World Trade Organization (WTO), established in 1995 as the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), provides the legal framework governing roughly 98 percent of global trade. Its covered agreements span goods, services, intellectual property, and trade remedies, and its dispute settlement system was long considered the 'crown jewel' of the multilateral trading order. Named after Professor John H. Jackson, one of the principal intellectual architects of the WTO, the system was designed to depoliticize trade conflicts by subjecting them to binding, rules-based adjudication. Since 2019, however, WTO law has faced an existential challenge. The United States has blocked Appellate Body appointments, paralyzing the second tier of dispute settlement and prompting the EU and others to develop the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) as a workaround. Substantively, the system is being tested by industrial policy revivals, national security exceptions under GATT Article XXI, climate-related trade measures, and the rise of plurilateral rather than multilateral negotiation. The MC12 and MC13 Ministerial Conferences produced commitments to restore a fully functioning dispute settlement mechanism, but reform negotiations remain unresolved. The topic invites delegates to consider how WTO law continues to discipline state behavior, where its texts are most contested, and how panels and arbitrators interpret core obligations amid geopolitical fragmentation.

Key players

United States
Principal critic of the Appellate Body and driver of reform demands
EUU
Lead architect of the MPIA and defender of binding adjudication
China
Major user of dispute settlement and frequent respondent on industrial policy measures
India
Vocal advocate for development-oriented interpretation of WTO rules
Brazil
Active complainant shaping subsidies and agriculture jurisprudence
Japan
Supporter of multilateral reform and plurilateral initiatives

International Trade Law in an Era of Strategic Competition

International trade law encompasses the treaties, customary rules, and institutional practices governing cross-border commerce, including the WTO agreements, regional trade agreements (RTAs), bilateral investment treaties, and increasingly, unilateral measures justified on national security, environmental, or human rights grounds. Its modern form emerged from the post-1945 effort to prevent the beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism of the interwar period, evolving through eight GATT rounds into the comprehensive WTO architecture and a dense network of over 350 notified RTAs. Today the field is in flux. Industrial policy has returned in instruments such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act, the EU's Green Deal Industrial Plan and Critical Raw Materials Act, and China's Made in China 2025 program. Export controls, investment screening, carbon border adjustments, and forced labor import bans increasingly overlap with — and sometimes contradict — core most-favored-nation and national treatment obligations. Disputes over the scope of GATT Article XX environmental exceptions and Article XXI security exceptions are reshaping the boundary between legitimate regulatory autonomy and disguised protectionism. The topic calls on delegates to interpret how foundational principles of nondiscrimination, transparency, and proportionality apply to contemporary measures, and how international trade law adapts when economic policy is openly used as a tool of geopolitical competition.

Key players

Trade Governance of Critical Minerals

Critical minerals — including lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earth elements, graphite, and copper — have become strategic inputs for the energy transition, semiconductors, and defense systems. Their extraction and processing are highly concentrated: China refines roughly 60–90 percent of global rare earths and a majority of lithium and cobalt processing capacity, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Australia, and Chile dominate upstream mining of specific commodities. This concentration has triggered widespread concern about supply security and resilience. Governments have responded with export restrictions, processing bans, domestic content incentives, and 'friend-shoring' clubs such as the U.S.-led Minerals Security Partnership and the EU Critical Raw Materials Act. Indonesia's nickel ore export ban was successfully challenged at the WTO by the EU in 2022 (DS592), and China's 2010 rare earths case (DS431/432/433) confirmed strict limits on Article XI export restrictions and Article XX(g) conservation defenses. Yet new measures continue to proliferate, raising questions about how trade law treats resource nationalism aimed at value-chain upgrading versus protectionism. Delegates must grapple with the tension between sovereign control over natural resources, climate-driven demand surges, and WTO disciplines on quantitative restrictions, subsidies, and export duties.

Key players

Trade Measures on Cooling Paint Products

Cooling paints, or radiative cooling coatings, are advanced surface materials that reflect solar radiation and emit heat in the mid-infrared window, lowering surface temperatures without electricity. They have attracted intense interest as low-cost adaptation tools for buildings, vehicles, and infrastructure in a warming climate, with commercial products developed in the United States, China, the EU, and Japan. Markets for such climate-friendly construction materials are projected to grow rapidly as cities adopt heat-mitigation building codes. Trade frictions are emerging on multiple fronts. Governments are weighing subsidies and tax credits for green building materials, technical regulations and standards on solar reflectance and emissivity, public procurement preferences for domestic 'green' products, and tariff classifications that may favor or disadvantage imports. Patent disputes over photonic and nanostructured cooling technologies also implicate TRIPS obligations. Measures could be challenged under the TBT Agreement, the SCM Agreement, GATT Articles I and III, or defended under environmental exceptions in Article XX. The topic asks delegates to interpret how the trading system handles a novel climate-adaptation product category that sits at the intersection of industrial policy, standard-setting, intellectual property, and environmental objectives.

Key players

Trade in Barite and Strategic Industrial Minerals

Barite (barium sulfate) is an industrial mineral indispensable to oil and gas drilling, where it is the dominant weighting agent in drilling fluids, and is also used in chemicals, paints, and radiation shielding. Global production is concentrated in China, India, Morocco, Kazakhstan, and the United States, with China historically accounting for around a third of supply. The U.S. Geological Survey lists barite as a critical mineral due to high import reliance and limited substitutability in petroleum applications. Barite trade has been shaped by antidumping duties — notably long-standing U.S. orders on Chinese barite — by export controls, and by environmental regulation of mining and tailings. As producing states pursue beneficiation policies and importers seek supply diversification, measures such as export licensing, minimum export prices, and quality-based technical regulations raise issues under GATT Articles XI and III and the SCM and Antidumping Agreements. The mineral also illustrates how 'unglamorous' but strategic commodities can become flashpoints in broader resource and energy security debates. Delegates will examine how WTO disciplines apply to a narrowly traded but strategically vital mineral, and how trade remedy, export restriction, and environmental measures intersect in this sector.

Key players

GATT 1994: Core Obligations and Contemporary Challenges

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 is the foundational instrument of WTO law on trade in goods, incorporating the original 1947 GATT and a series of Uruguay Round understandings. Its core disciplines — most-favored-nation treatment (Article I), tariff bindings (Article II), national treatment (Article III), the prohibition on quantitative restrictions (Article XI), general exceptions (Article XX), and security exceptions (Article XXI) — constitute the grammar through which most goods disputes are still framed. Professor John H. Jackson's scholarship was central to shaping the legal understanding of GATT and its transition into the WTO. GATT 1994 jurisprudence is being actively reshaped by recent disputes. Panels in Russia – Traffic in Transit (DS512), Saudi Arabia – IPRs (DS567), and the U.S. Section 232 steel and aluminum cases (DS544 and others) have, for the first time, interpreted Article XXI security exceptions. Article XX environmental jurisprudence continues to develop around climate measures, and Article III national treatment is being tested by subsidies tied to domestic production. Tariff re-negotiation under Article XXVIII and the legal status of unbound tariff increases also remain practically significant. Delegates are asked to apply GATT 1994 with doctrinal precision, navigating its text, panel and Appellate Body interpretations, and the increasing pressure on its exceptions architecture.

Key players

United States
Frequent invoker of Article XXI security exceptions and major tariff actor
China
Leading complainant and respondent in Article I and III disputes
Russia
Respondent in landmark Article XXI Traffic in Transit case
EUU
Defender of textual GATT discipline and active litigant on Article XX measures
India
Key voice on tariff bindings, Article XVIII development flexibilities, and agriculture
Brazil
Influential complainant shaping Article III and subsidies interpretation

Local Content Requirements under WTO Disciplines

Local content requirements (LCRs) condition market access, subsidies, tax benefits, or procurement on the use of domestically produced inputs, labor, or services. Long a feature of industrial policy in developing countries, they have proliferated globally in the renewable energy, automotive, electronics, and critical minerals sectors. The IMF and OECD have documented a sharp increase in LCRs since 2008, particularly as part of green industrial strategies. LCRs sit uneasily with WTO law. Article III:4 of GATT 1994 prohibits less favorable treatment of imported goods, the TRIMs Agreement explicitly bans certain LCRs, and the SCM Agreement treats subsidies contingent on the use of domestic over imported goods as prohibited. The Appellate Body confirmed this strict approach in Canada – Renewable Energy/FIT (DS412/426) and India – Solar Cells (DS456), and more recent disputes target U.S. IRA electric vehicle credits, Indonesia's nickel-linked measures, and various EV and battery subsidies. Yet states argue that LCRs are necessary for technology transfer, employment, supply chain resilience, and a just energy transition. Delegates must reconcile the strong textual prohibition with growing political demand for LCRs as climate and security tools.

Key players

Government Procurement and the GPA Framework

Government procurement accounts for roughly 12–20 percent of GDP across most economies, making it a major arena where trade and domestic policy intersect. Public purchasing was largely excluded from core GATT disciplines, leaving regulation to the plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), which entered its revised form in 2014. The GPA binds 22 parties (counting the EU as one) covering 49 WTO members, opening designated entities and contracts above specified thresholds to competition from other parties on national treatment and nondiscrimination terms. Most WTO members — including China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa — remain outside the GPA, though China has been an applicant since 2007. 'Buy American', 'Buy European', and similar preferences have intensified, alongside procurement-linked sustainability, labor, and security conditions. The EU's International Procurement Instrument (IPI) and Foreign Subsidies Regulation, and U.S. expansions of domestic content thresholds, illustrate growing use of procurement as strategic policy. Procurement also intersects with anti-corruption commitments and increasingly with climate criteria. Delegates are asked to consider how the GPA framework constrains discriminatory procurement, how non-parties shape global procurement flows, and how reciprocity instruments fit within WTO obligations.

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition – 24th Edition (2026), plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

Critical Mineral Critical Minerals Supply Chain Government Procurement Agreement Central-Local Relations Council-Manager Government critical minerals

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition – 24th Edition (2026)

Jun 23–27, 2026Geneva, SwitzerlandIn-person

Happening nowRegistration open

Country perspectives

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

Switzerland

As the host nation for the final rounds in Geneva, CHE, Switzerland provides the neutral ground for international legal discourse.

Role in topic

Topics & background

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

WTO Law and the Future of Multilateral Trade Adjudication

Key players

United States
Principal critic of the Appellate Body and driver of reform demands
EUU
Lead architect of the MPIA and defender of binding adjudication
China
Major user of dispute settlement and frequent respondent on industrial policy measures
India
Vocal advocate for development-oriented interpretation of WTO rules
Brazil
Active complainant shaping subsidies and agriculture jurisprudence
Japan
Supporter of multilateral reform and plurilateral initiatives

International Trade Law in an Era of Strategic Competition

Key players

Trade Governance of Critical Minerals

Key players

Trade Measures on Cooling Paint Products

Key players

Trade in Barite and Strategic Industrial Minerals

Key players

GATT 1994: Core Obligations and Contemporary Challenges

Key players

United States
Frequent invoker of Article XXI security exceptions and major tariff actor
China
Leading complainant and respondent in Article I and III disputes
Russia
Respondent in landmark Article XXI Traffic in Transit case
EUU
Defender of textual GATT discipline and active litigant on Article XX measures
India
Key voice on tariff bindings, Article XVIII development flexibilities, and agriculture
Brazil
Influential complainant shaping Article III and subsidies interpretation

Local Content Requirements under WTO Disciplines

Key players

Government Procurement and the GPA Framework

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition – 24th Edition (2026), plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

Critical Mineral Critical Minerals Supply Chain Government Procurement Agreement Central-Local Relations Council-Manager Government critical minerals

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Key terms & resources

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

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1st Fribourg International Pre-Moot

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Country perspectives

Topics & background

Key terms & resources

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

Swiss Moot Court 2025/2026

1st Fribourg International Pre-Moot

24th John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition – West and South Asia Regional Round 2026

Sports Law Arbitration Moot (SLAM) 7th Edition 2026

18th Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition

Nelson Mandela 18th World Human Rights Moot Court Competition 2026

Related conferences

Swiss Moot Court 2025/2026

1st Fribourg International Pre-Moot

24th John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition – West and South Asia Regional Round 2026

Sports Law Arbitration Moot (SLAM) 7th Edition 2026

18th Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition

Nelson Mandela 18th World Human Rights Moot Court Competition 2026