The Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar (GNLU) recently organized the 4^th edition of the GNLU International Moot Court Competition (GIMC) from February 8-12, 2012. The Competition saw participation from 37 law schools from India and abroad, including teams from USA, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

In the final round held on February 12, 2012 at the GNLU campus, NLSIU Bangalore defeated the NLU Jodhpur team. Earlier, the two teams had been joined by NLIU Bhopal and ILS Pune in the semi-final rounds.

The judges for the final round were V. Lakshmikumaran, Partner, Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan (LKS), Mitsuo Matsushita from Tokyo University, Shishir Priyadarshi, Director, Development Division, World Trade Organisation, Dr. Rafael Leal-Arcas, Senior Research Fellow, WTI, Bern, Switzerland and drafter of the moot problem Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer, Professor of International Law at the University of Basel.

NLSIU (pictured left)  took away a grand trophy and a cash prize of Rs. 35,000. The team also bagged a summer course/internship at the World Trade Institute while NLU Jodhpur took a cash prize of Rs. 20,000 and internships in the offices of LKS.

ILS Pune bagged the Best Memorandum award winning Rs. 6,000 and free Black's Law Dictionaries for each team member. 

Harsha Gupta from ILS Pune team bagged the Best Speaker award for the Preliminary Rounds while Jasraj Singh from the winning NLSIU team won the Best Speaker award for Final Rounds.

The moot problem was based on a trade dispute between two sovereign nations, including aspects of evolving intellectual property rights issues and issues pertaining to sports law.

Speaking to Bar & Bench, Co coordinator of logistics for GIMC, Kapish Mandhyan says that the “GIMC experience for me is [a combination of] a tough moot problem, tougher opponents, the best judges and the sweetest hospitality!”

(This report is courtesy our GNLU Student Correspondent Nikhil Varshney)