The University of Malaya together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Regional Delegation in Malaysia has organized the 6th National Moot Court competition on International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which took place on 12 & 13 December, 2009. ICRC organized a moot court competition whereby law students took part in simulated court proceedings that include problem-analysis, preparing memorials and oral arguments.

The 2009 National Moot Court Competition on the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) aims to provide a venue for law students to become acquainted and be proficient on IHL issues, including related conventions, principles, and jurisprudence, as this is clearly of major concern on people’s lives.  Furthermore, this was an opportunity for students to practice and hone their skills and talents in the art of argumentation and develop the skills to become good lawyers.

At first the competition was open to all part three and part one students but since there is no positive response from the students, selections have been made by Syafiq Sulaiman the Moot IHL coach. The selections are based on his sense, academic performance, and demonstrated ability to speak in the class room during lecture. Representatives of the two days competition include Nur Hafizah Zakaria and Rumaysa Nadia Mohd Suhaimi team for applicant and Nor Zainee Seli and Anis Sofiah Che Hashim as a respondent, while researcher team consisted of Zahidah, Najwa, Ranjit, Atif, and Asyraf.

By entering this competition we gained knowledge about war crime of armed forces, police, other armed groups and civil society institutions is one of the mandates states party to the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols bestowed on the ICRC.

The moot court competition increases the familiarity of law students with IHL as well as exposing students how to present their case in front of judges. Students who take part in the moot court competition are given fictitious cases to work on and must present their arguments in competition with other teams during the oral submission.

This year's competition brought together nine teams from various universities IPTA and IPTS from across the country took part in this year's competition. All the team had been registered with team number started 601 to 609. The two finalists of the competition were from UUM and ATC. There are three judges for the final round served as a prestigious panel presided for case Prosecutor v. Albert Wiseman.

THE OBJECTIVES

The Objectives of this moot competition are:

a)    To develop an increased awareness and interest in International Humanitarian Law in academic institutions.

b)    To use International Humanitarian Law to further academic excellence in the student community.

c)    To develop students’ advocacy skills in an environment of friendly competition.

d)    To provide students with access to knowledge, information and materials on International Humanitarian Law so they can disseminate the same.

e)    To initiate more student involvement in International Humanitarian Law promotion activities and initiatives.

f)     To promote UDM to others university as well as to the public at large so that people will establish law in UDM.

g)    To develop credibility in order to get recognition from MQA, Bar Council and so on.

The participants will be placed in an imaginary humanitarian crisis and will be required to play different roles in the mock-up (oral submission). A document with background information about the context of the problem will be provided to the participants in time to prepare adequately for the competition. The facts will be based on contemporary conflicts, without referring directly to any real situation. Teams will be assigned “team numbers” through their representative. The participating teams must not reveal their university affiliation for the entire duration of the competition whether intentionally or inadvertently. Teams may submit written requests for clarification after they read the moot problem. A request for clarification must be accompanied by a brief explanation of the expected material significance of the same. Clarifications must not be requested to obtain facts other than those already contained in the moot problem. The Committee shall determine the necessity of responding to the request for clarification, and may respond to the same as it deems fit.  Any clarifications issued shall be considered part of the moot problem and will be distributed to all the team representatives.

Each team participating in the Competition is required to prepare and submit an Applicant and a Respondent Memorial on the moot problem. No Memorial will be accepted beyond the specified date.

The competition will involve only three rounds, namely, the Preliminary Round, Semi-final and the Final Round. This year International Humanitarian Law Moot Court Competition focusing on issues of elements of crime which the indictment regarding the crime of unlawful confinement and crime against humanity of extermination and also the type of armed conflicts.

The Preliminary Round

On the day of the competition, the teams will be divided into a few clusters, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I. To choose which team they will fight, teams will be picked randomly by a draw of lots that had been held on 3th December 2009 organized by Mr Fork Yow Leong. The exchange of the memorials of each team also had been done on that day. Teams compete simultaneously by playing roles according to the instructions given to each participant. There are two rounds, and our team, (605) compete with the 609 and 608 team. First round begun at 10am and second round was take place at evening at 2.30pm. Judges will award marks according to the performance of each team in the role assigned to it. From each cluster, the best team qualifies for the Semi Final Round.

The Semi Final Round

There are two team for applicant and two team from respondent that advance to participate in semi final round during the competition which is team no 606(UIA) and 609(ATC) for respondent and team 606(UIA) and 602(UUM). It was so disappointed because we cannot proceed to the Semi Final Round.

The Final Round

For purposes of the Final Round, the two best teams from the Semi Final Round clusters teams will compete to win the first place as well as going to international round. The best team will be decided according to their understanding and application of International Humanitarian Law to the problem in regard to the sides they will be arguing for in the final. Congrats to UUM and ATC who manage to the final round. This year the applicant team 602 (UUM) v. team 609 (ATC) as the respondent. Each participant receives a certificate while the winning team takes the Competition trophy and will represent Malaysia at the International Moot Court Competition on International Humanitarian Law in Hong Kong on March 2010. This year the team from national round wins the competition was from University Utara Malaysia, team no (602). The ICRC will sponsor the best team (UUM) from the Moot Court Competition to represent Malaysia to proceed in national round. Congratulations!

UDM’S ACHIEVEMENT

This is FUHA UDM second try in the competition. In 2008 Competition, FUHA UDM only managed to secure last place from 8 team participants. However, there was a marked improvement this year, wherein overall, FUHA UDM achieved 5^th place from 9 teams participation. As for Memorials, FUHA UDM achieved the 2^nd place. Congratulations to FUHA UDM!

The next competition is The Philip Jessup International Moot Competition. Only one team from UDM will participate in the International Moot Competition that takes place on February 2010. The team members for the Jessup Team are third year and second year student. Also, we recognize the excellent effort of the researcher team. We hope university will sent more team so that more students got their chance to gain experience in mooting competition. After participating this competition, I feel that, one day UDM will become one of the establish university in mooting. This is not impossible, I feel if 2^nd time I enter this IHL competition I will improve and maybe win the competition, because experience is the best teacher to learn. But it does not matter who join the competition but how they research, practice and prepare before the competition. I suggest FUHA should provide a professional coach to guide our mooting team, so that we can build a champion team in the near future.

Thank you to all of the participants as well as the Lecturers and Staff of the Faculty for making this year's competition possible. In addition, special thanks to the En Mohd Fuad Husaini, En Asril, En Aminuddin and others who are helping us during the training session.

Congratulations to all involved!