Per Aspera ad Astra // Results of the HSE Faculty of Law Team Participation in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition 2022

The HSE Faculty of Law team successfully participated in both Russian and international rounds of the prestigious Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition (Jessup Competition), which was held online from February 5 to 20 (Russian national rounds) and from March 24 to April 10 (international rounds) 2022.

The Jessup team of the HSE Faculty of Law in 2022

© Photo from team members

About 30 teams from all over Russia participated in the national championship of the competition this year. The HSE Faculty of Law team entered the top-5 teams that passed the national selection for participation in international rounds. Thus, the HSE team has been consistently participating in international rounds for seven years in a row, which is an absolutely unique result among Russian teams. 

The HSE team in 2022 consisted of the following members:

Anastasia Burnakina (1st year student of the Master’s degree program “International Trade and Dispute Resolution”)

Anastasia Fomenko (1st year student of the Master’s degree program “International Trade and Dispute Resolution”)

Alyona Ilchenko (4th year Bachelor’s degree student)

Victoria Polshakova (4th year Bachelor’s degree student)

Elizaveta Butenko (3d year Bachelor’s degree student).

The coaches of the team were Gayane Gulyan (a graduate of the Faculty of Law of Higher School of Economics in 2018) and Matvey Tarasov (a student of the LLM program of the University of Leuven and a PhD student of the Faculty of Law of Higher School of Economics).

Apart from the overall high results of the team’s performance at the Russian rounds, the HSE team won awards in each category of the competition. In particular, the HSE Faculty of Law team received an award for the 2^nd place in the category “Best Memorial”, and two team participants entered the top-5 and top-10 of the Russian Best Oralists ranking (Anastasia Burnakina — 5^th place, Anastasia Fomenko — 10^th place). 

In March-April 2022 the HSE team participated in the international rounds of the competition.

The HSE team competed against the teams from the USA (University of Virginia), Zimbabwe (Great Zimbabwe University), China (Macau University of Science and Technology) and Argentina (Universidad de Buenos Aires). As a result of the international rounds,the HSE Jessup team became the only Russian team, whose participants entered the top of the International Round Oralist ranking( Anastasia Fomenko - top-100 Best Oralists).

The Phillip C. Jessup International Law Competition was founded in 1959 as an international law competition conducted in the English language in the form of the moot court – simulation of proceedings in the International Court of Justice. Currently, Jessup Competition is the largest and one of the most famous and prestigious moot court competitions in the world. More than 3,000 law students from more than 700 universities and 100 countries worldwide annually participate in this competition. Notwithstanding the online format this year, the number of the participants remained high.

The 2022 Jessup problem addressed issues of human rights on the Internet, data theft, the secession of part of a nation’s territory, and foreign election interference.

Congratulations to the team and the coaches for the high results in the Russian and international rounds and the best of luck in the competition next year!

New HSE team selection is planned to be held in September-October 2022. Please, follow the news on the website of the Faculty of Law and official page of the HSE Jessup team on Vkontakte at the link https://vk.com/hsejessup.