Where will the German National Rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition be held?

The competition will take place in the city of Berlin, DEU.

What level of participants is this competition open to?

The competition is open to college-level participants.

What is the format of the competition?

The competition follows a moot court format, simulating proceedings before the International Court of Justice.

Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition 2027 – German National Rounds

Feb 24–27, 2027Berlin, GermanyIn-person

Registration open

The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition's German National Rounds are scheduled to take place in Berlin, DEU. This event brings together college-level participants from across DEU to engage in simulated international legal proceedings. The competition serves as a crucial platform for aspiring international lawyers to hone their advocacy skills and deepen their understanding of complex global legal issues. The competition format involves teams arguing both sides of a hypothetical case before a panel of judges, simulating the International Court of Justice. The event emphasizes rigorous legal research, persuasive oral arguments, and comprehensive written memorials, preparing students for careers in international law and diplomacy.

Country perspectives

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

Germany

Host and participant in the national rounds, emphasizing legal education and international law.

Role in topic

As the host nation for these national rounds, DEU plays a crucial role in fostering legal education and promoting engagement with international law among its college students. The event in Berlin highlights DEU's commitment to developing future legal professionals capable of navigating complex global legal frameworks.

Topics & background

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

Allegations of Gender Apartheid Under International Law

The term 'gender apartheid' has emerged in international discourse to describe systematic, institutionalized regimes of domination and segregation imposed on women and girls, most prominently in connection with the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan since August 2021 and, in different forms, restrictions imposed in Iran. While 'apartheid' is codified as a crime against humanity under the 1973 Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute, both instruments define it in terms of racial groups. Advocates—including UN Special Rapporteurs Richard Bennett (Afghanistan) and Javaid Rehman (Iran), and a coalition of jurists led by figures such as Karima Bennoune—have argued that the conceptual framework should be extended, or a parallel crime recognized, to capture institutionalized gender-based oppression. The debate has intensified as the International Law Commission advances draft articles on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity, with several states and civil society groups proposing that the definition of apartheid be amended to include gender. In parallel, the ICJ proceedings initiated by Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany against Afghanistan under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in September 2024 have placed Taliban edicts barring women from secondary and university education, most employment, public spaces, and unaccompanied travel squarely before international adjudication. The ICC Prosecutor's May 2025 application for arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders for gender persecution further crystallized the legal stakes. The core legal questions concern whether existing crimes—persecution on gender grounds under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, and the prohibition of discrimination under CEDAW and the ICCPR—are sufficient, or whether codifying gender apartheid as a distinct crime would close a normative gap. Opponents caution about treaty interpretation limits, sovereignty, and the risk of diluting the historically specific meaning of apartheid, while proponents stress the systemic, institutional character of the conduct at issue.

Key players

Recognition and Legal Status of Governments Installed by Coup d'État

International law has long wrestled with how to treat governments that come to power through unconstitutional means. Classical doctrine, associated with the Tobar and Estrada doctrines of the early twentieth century, oscillated between conditioning recognition on democratic legitimacy and treating recognition as a purely factual matter of effective control. The post-Cold War period saw a partial normative shift, reflected in instruments such as the African Union's Lomé Declaration (2000) and the Inter-American Democratic Charter (2001), which authorize suspension of states whose governments are overthrown unconstitutionally. Yet practice remains inconsistent: the international community has variously recognized, ignored, or condemned military takeovers in Myanmar (2021), Sudan (2021), Mali (2020/2021), Guinea (2021), Burkina Faso (2022), Niger (2023), and Gabon (2023). The legal consequences of contested status are substantial. They affect a regime's capacity to represent the state at the UN General Assembly (as illustrated by the credentials disputes over Afghanistan and Myanmar since 2021), to conclude treaties, to access sovereign assets and central bank reserves, to invoke or waive state immunity, and to bind the state in proceedings before international courts. Where rival authorities both claim to govern—such as Venezuela between 2019 and 2023, or Libya since 2014—third states' choices about recognition directly shape access to diplomatic premises, frozen assets, and ICSID or commercial arbitration outcomes. Contemporary disputes increasingly focus on the interaction between the principle of effectiveness, the prohibition on recognizing situations created by serious breaches of peremptory norms (Articles 40–41 of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility), and emerging norms against unconstitutional changes of government. Moot court fact patterns in this area typically require analysis of state succession to treaty obligations, the locus standi of contested governments before international tribunals, and the responsibility of recognizing or non-recognizing states.

Key players

State Responses to Mass Influx of Asylum Seekers

Mass-influx situations have repeatedly tested the architecture built around the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, which were drafted primarily for individualized refugee status determination. From the Indochinese boat people in the late 1970s, through the Balkan displacements of the 1990s, to the Syrian displacement after 2011, the Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh in 2017, the Venezuelan displacement across Latin America, and the more than six million Ukrainians displaced into Europe after February 2022, states have improvised between temporary protection regimes, prima facie group recognition, externalization arrangements, and outright closure of borders. The core legal obligations—non-refoulement under Article 33 of the Refugee Convention, Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, and corresponding human rights treaty provisions—are widely accepted as customary, but their scope remains contested in mass-influx contexts. Disputes center on the extraterritorial reach of non-refoulement (as litigated in Hirsi Jamaa v. Italy before the ECtHR in 2012), the legality of pushbacks and 'safe third country' transfers (including the UK-Rwanda arrangement struck down by the UK Supreme Court in 2023 and the EU-Türkiye Statement of 2016), the permissibility of derogations during declared emergencies, and the obligations of transit and destination states under the principle of international cooperation reflected in the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees. Recent state practice has increasingly tested these limits: instrumentalization of migrants at the Belarus–Poland border from 2021, Italy's protocol with Albania for offshore processing, U.S. restrictions invoking Title 42 and successor measures, and Türkiye's hosting of nearly four million Syrians while seeking burden-sharing. Moot problems in this field typically engage the interplay between sovereignty over borders, non-refoulement, the right to seek asylum, and emerging arguments about shared responsibility.

Key players

AI-Generated Sanctions Designations and Due Process Under International Law

Targeted sanctions regimes—operated by the UN Security Council, the European Union, the United States through OFAC, the United Kingdom through OFSI, and others—have proliferated since the 1990s as a more discriminating alternative to comprehensive sanctions. Their legitimacy has long been challenged on due process grounds, most prominently in Kadi I and II before the Court of Justice of the EU (2008, 2013), Nada v. Switzerland before the ECtHR (2012), and Al-Dulimi (2016). These cases established that listing decisions must be subject to meaningful judicial review, that listed persons must receive a statement of reasons, and that evidence underlying designations must be capable of scrutiny. The growing use of artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools by sanctions authorities to screen transactions, identify networks of beneficial ownership, and generate or recommend designations introduces novel legal questions. Algorithmic systems can ingest open-source intelligence, financial messaging data, vessel tracking, and corporate registries to flag candidates for designation at a scale impossible for human analysts. However, where the rationale for a listing rests on inferences drawn by opaque models, the obligations to provide reasoned justifications, to permit effective challenge, and to ensure non-discrimination come under strain. Concerns also arise about the reliability of training data, automation bias, and the extraterritorial effects of secondary sanctions generated through such tools. No binding international instrument yet specifically governs algorithmic decision-making in sanctions practice, though the EU AI Act (2024), Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI (2024), and OHCHR guidance on human rights and technology provide partial frameworks. The intersection of sanctions law with the right to an effective remedy under Article 14 ICCPR, property rights, and the prohibition of arbitrary measures forms the legal terrain for emerging disputes, including the question of state responsibility when an AI-recommended designation is subsequently shown to be erroneous.

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition 2027 – German National Rounds, plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

Administrative State Carceral State City-State Committee on the Status of Women in India (Towards Equality Report 1974)Act of State Act of State Doctrine

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition 2027 – German National Rounds

Feb 24–27, 2027Berlin, GermanyIn-person

Registration open

Country perspectives

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

Germany

Host and participant in the national rounds, emphasizing legal education and international law.

Role in topic

Topics & background

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

Allegations of Gender Apartheid Under International Law

Key players

Recognition and Legal Status of Governments Installed by Coup d'État

Key players

State Responses to Mass Influx of Asylum Seekers

Key players

AI-Generated Sanctions Designations and Due Process Under International Law

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition 2027 – German National Rounds, plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

Administrative State Carceral State City-State Committee on the Status of Women in India (Towards Equality Report 1974)Act of State Act of State Doctrine

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Key terms & resources

Frequently asked questions

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Country perspectives

Topics & background

Key terms & resources

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

10th Jewish Law Moot Court 2026

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Jessup Moot Court 2026/2027: Informationsveranstaltung und Bewerbung

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Related conferences

10th Jewish Law Moot Court 2026

Hugo Sinzheimer Moot Court Competition 2026

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Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court 2026/27

Soldan Moot Court 2026

Nuremberg Moot Court 2026