University of Buenos Aires wins ICC Trial Competition, Spanish version
On 5 June 2015, the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) won the final round of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Trial Competition, Spanish version. Pictured here is the winning team with ICC Judge Sylvia Steiner in ICC Courtroom II in The Hague (Netherlands): Agustina Becerra Vazquez, Karen Vane Helmich , Mariana Gutierrez, Rosario Alessandretti, Natalia Marina Luterstein and Dalila Bettina Seoane. © ICC-CPI
On 5 June 2015, the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) won the final round of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Trial Competition, Spanish version, held in ICC Courtroom II in The Hague (Netherlands). The Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil) and National University of Colombia, respectively, second and third place. The Best Speaker award went to Sonia Lorena Russi Noguera of the National University of Colombia. The winning team is composed of Natalia Marina Luterstein, Dalila Bettina Seoane, Agustina Becerra Vazquez, Rosario Alessandretti, Mariana Gutierrez and Karen Vane Helmich.
This year, 20 teams from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain and Venezuela participated in a simulation exercise on the applicable law and jurisprudence of the ICC, of which 9 teams participated in the semi-finals during the fifth Iberoamerican Week in The Hague. Today’s final round took place before a bench composed of ICC Judge Sylvia Steiner (Presiding Judge), ICC Chief of Public Information Section Sonia Robla, and ICC Legal Officer Alejandro Kiss. The teams competed on a fictitious case, presenting oral arguments during an appeals hearing in the roles of the Prosecution, Legal Representatives of Victims and Representatives of a Government.
After a break for deliberations, the bench announced their decision and an awards ceremony was held for all participants. The finalists’ peers attended the event in the Court’s public galleries and the event was web streamed live on the Court’s official website.
The third Edition of the Spanish version of the ICC Trial Competition takes place as part of the fifth annual Iberoamerican Week of International Justice and Human Rights, held in The Hague, and is organised by the Iberoamerican Institute of The Hague for Peace, Human Rights and International Justice (IIH), with the institutional support of the International Criminal Court, the Hague University for Applied Sciences, the Grotius Center for International Studies, the T.M.C. Asser Institute, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and the Ibero-American General Secretariat.
In the context of its Academic Programme, the ICC supports the organisation of ICC Trial Competitions in Chinese, English, Russian and Spanish, with a view to also support Arabic and French versions in the future. These initiatives play a critical role in galvanising interest in the Court’s work with academic communities as well as in enhancing promotion and respect for international criminal law.
View photographs of the event here.
