UOC claims first international mooting title for Sri Lanka

The team representing the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo emerged Champions at the Global Rounds of the 19th John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition 2021.

The John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition is the premier International Moot Court Competition organized annually by the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA), focused on International Trade Law (ITL) and based on the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The prestigious competition is held in Geneva each year but migrated to a virtual platform to accommodate travel restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic. It attracts over 100 teams from across the globe, as well as WTO experts from legal academia and the WTO Secretariat. 

The team comprised 3rd-year undergraduates of the Faculty of Law; Saheli Wikramanayake, Avishka Jayaweera, Adithya Ramanitharan and Sandun Batagoda.

The team was coached by Harish Balakrishnan (Senior Partner at the Moot Court Bench), and Harrison Mbori (Research Fellow Max Planck Institute, Luxemborg & Doctoral Researcher, Loyola University, Chicago).

The team was trained under the Moot Court Bench and supported by the Commercial Law Development Program of the United States Department of Commerce.

The UoC team prevailed as the first Sri Lankan team to win the John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition amongst 100 of the best international universities. They also claimed several awards for both their written and oral advocacy skills including, Overall Best Written Submission on Behalf of the Respondent, Best Orator in the Grand Final (Saheli Wikramanayake), and Best Orator in the Quarter-finals (Avishka Jayaweera).

This achievement, for the Faculty of Law, is nearly 17 years in the making. The undergraduates that have made up the Moot Court and Debating Society of the Faculty of Law strive, each year, to increase the University’s participation in the International Moot Circuit. Faculty undergraduates, over the years, have improved the standard of their performance in the international circuit, culminating in the first international mooting title for Sri Lanka, secured by the Faculty of Law.