René Cassin European Human Rights Moot Court Competition
The René Cassin European Human Rights Moot Court Competition is a simulation of an appearance before the European Court of Human Rights and is conducted entirely in French. It began in 1984, in Strasbourg, France, the seat of the ECHR, with the goal of introducing more students to the world of human rights. WCL has participated in the Competition for many years and, until this year, was the only team from the United States to compete against the nearly 60 teams from universities all over the world. Students, lawyers and civil servants at the Council of Europe organize the competition and write each year's fact pattern. The Competition comprises two steps: first, researching and writing a 30-page brief and second, a 40-minute oral argument.
The 2004 Competition
This year's hypothetical case revolves around the legality of a reality TV show/game produced by a state-owned television channel. Contestants are split into groups of "hunters" and "prey." During the game, the "hunters" shoot at the "prey" with paintball guns in order to win. The game abruptly ends when a bomb explodes in front of the "hunters'" villa. The twist is that the government, upon the announcement of the new show, had received a terrorist threat from a group seeking the independence of the island where the game was filmed.
The 2004 participants are Caroline Genevois, Laura Lattman, and Stefanie Magner. Caroline is a 2L in the joint JD/MA program; she is originally from New Caledonia. Laura, also a 2L, will spend her summer as an intern at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, located in Tanzania. Stefanie volunteers as a French interpreter for the International Human Rights Clinic and is also a 2L. Thierno Balde, a WCL alum, serves at the Team Coach.
For more information about the Competition, please visit its website at www.concourscassin.org. The European Court of Human Rights also has a website: www.echr.coe.int where you can find more information about the Court and its mission, as well as the text of the European Convention on Human Rights and a database of the Court's jurisprudence.