Two Indian teams scored huge points internationall and in the Mooting Premier League (MPL) 6 sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehills recently at the ELSA and Manfred Lachs Space Moot Asia Pacific round.

Manfred Lachs Space Moot

The team from Nalsar Hyderabad comprising of Chinmayi Sharma, Ravishankar Krishnan and Debarpan Ghosh bested NLU Delhi to win the Asia pacific rounds of the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition, 2015 held at Padjajaran University, Bandung, Indonesia.

Chinmayi Sharma of the winning team, who also won the best speaker of finals award, commented: “We thought the moot was extremely well organized. Hats off to Padjajaran University for ensuring that every round was on schedule and for really taking the effort to make us feel at home!”

She added: “A great variety of top notch arguments were presented this year, which meant that one couldn’t have a standard approach to every round. Our most challenging rounds were probably against Murdoch and NLU-Delhi, both excellent teams. Judges throughout posed relevant and probing questions and it was an honour being judged by some of the authorities we had cited. We started working consistently somewhere around January, covering both aspects of public international law as well as space law. I think our use of scientific resources and documents particularly helped us. We would like to thank our university and the administration for their constant support.”

The team has qualified for the World Rounds to be held in Jerusalem.

NLU Delhi also won the best memorial award. NLSIU was the other Indian team which proceeded to the semi finals of the competition and was adjudged as the 2^nd runners up ahead of Murdoch University.

At a glance: Moot wise

ELSA WTO Moot

The team from NUJS Kolkata has bested NLU Jodhpur to win the world rounds of ELSA Moot Court Competition 2015 in Geneva over the weekend.

NLSIU emerged as a semi finalist at the Tier 4 moot court competition. While NUJS bested NLSIU in the semi finals, NLU-J defeated Harvard Law School to reach the finals.

There was a best speaker citation for every round and no overall best speaker award. Vatsal Vasudev from NLU, Jodhpur won it for the preliminary round and the quarter final. Ira Chaddha from NUJS won it for the Semi-Final. The one for the Final was shared by both of them. [The points for the best speaker will, however, be given to NLU – J as the preliminary round had the maximum participation.]

Rhea Jha, who was part of the runners up team of NLU-J, commented: “It was an amazing experience. The competition level was excellent. All the teams we faced, right from the preliminary round were really good. We had the pleasure of defeating Harvard in the Semi-Final after already having faced them in one of the preliminary rounds. The best part was seeing the names we read on spines of books and bylines of articles, up there on the panel judging us. The judges we were fortunate enough to have were great. The level of questioning was quite technical and in-depth. This also meant stress levels were high but I enjoyed every minute”.

She added: “After doing it, I am starting to feel ELSA is quite underrated. I knew trade law could get really technical but I don’t think I expected it to get that tough, especially from the quarters onwards. The most star-studded panel was of the course the 9-member one for the Final with Werner Zdouc (head of the Appellate Body Secretariat), A V Ganesan, Ambassador Jonathan Fried and Gabrielle Marceau among others. Both the finalist teams received some really overwhelming feedback, and coming from such eminent scholars, made all the hard work and effort worth i

At a glance: Moot wise

NLU Jodhpur and NLSIU still maintain their top ranks at MPL table while the third spot has been taken away from NUJS by NLU Delhi after the latter’s splendid performance at Manfred Lachs. NALSAR and NLIU maintain their 5^th and 6^th rank respectively.

At A Glance: Law School Wise

MPL Standing