Colombo Uni team wins Moot Court competition

The Moot Court Bench team representing the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo comprising Saheli Wikramanayake, Avishka Jayaweera, Adithya Ramanitharan and SandunBatagoda have emerged champions at the Global Rounds of the 19th John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition 2021.

They were trained by Harish Balakrishnan- Senior Partner at the MCB,and Harrison Mbori.

In the final round, the UoC team not only prevailed as the first Sri Lankan team to win JHJ amongst 100 of the best international universities, but also triumphed in being specially recognised for their performance in the form of several awards for both their written and oratory skills. The team was awarded the Overall Best Written Submission on Behalf of the Respondent, the award for Best Orator in the Preliminary Rounds and Saheli Wikramanayake was adjudged the Best Orator in the grand final.

The John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition is the premier International Moot Court Competition organised 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 and attracts over 100 teams from across the globe, as well as WTO experts from legal academia and the WTO Secretariat.

The UoC victors commenced their journey after being selected for the MCB’s International Trade Law Program in July 2020 alongside a team from the Sri Lanka Law College. The Law College  team was coached by Senith Abeynayake—the current head of ITL at the MCB— assisted by Professor Rajesh Sharma.

The two teams embarked onan extensive training regime in preparation over the course of several months leading up to the West and South AsianRegional Roundin May 2020 and exhibited their talent and growth through their exceptional performance that secured the UoC team the Award for the Best Memorandum as well as the semifinalist position which advanced the team to the Global Rounds in Geneva.

The pillar of support for the teams during this journey, the Moot Court Bench, is Sri Lanka’s first fully integrated training platform for advocacy in Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) and ITL in partnership withthe Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) of the United States Department of Commerce.The achievement at the JHJ Moot Court Competition is another highlight of the progressof the MCB which has displayed consistent success in its endeavors since its inception in 2018 following the Sri Lankan team’s achievementsat the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot.