STUDIES 2 ND VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES INTERNATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION 7 TH - 9 TH NOVEMBER, 2014 [1]

Transcription

1 VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES 2 ND VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES INTERNATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION 7 TH - 9 TH NOVEMBER, 2014 [1] Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies 2 nd International Moot Court Competition, 2014

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. VIPS International Moot Official Schedule Rules and Regulations Registration Form Travel Plan...16 [2]

3 VIPS INTERNATIONAL MOOT A moot court is an extracurricular activity at many law schools in which participants take part in simulated court proceedings, which usually involves drafting briefs (or memorials) and participating in oral argument. The event particularly involves 2 phases wherein the first phase the student research and the second where, they present the research orally in front of the simulated courts and judges. A domestic moot court competition tends to focus on municipal law i.e. domestic laws of the nation, regional and international moot competitions tend to focus on subjects such as public international law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international trade law, international maritime law, and international commercial arbitration. The Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies International Moot Court Competition is the first of its kind event where in, teams from various premier institutions of India and around the globe have been personally invited to participate. Institutions like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, NUS, University Of Sydney etc. from across boundaries and University Of Delhi, Indian Law Society's Law College, NLU's, Symbiosis Law School etc. from within the country have been personally invited to be a part of this grand event to be held in the month of November, The moot court aims to make the participants research, deliberate and discuss upon a topic of imminent international importance which not only broadens the scope of their horizon but works as an endeavor to make students realize the happenings of the real world and how the same are to be dealt. [3]

4 2 nd VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES INTERNATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION, 2014 OFFICIAL SCHEDULE Dates 7 th July, st August, nd September, th September, th October, th October, th October, th November 2014 Events Release of Moot Problem. Last date for Registration of Teams and Team Details Last day for allotment of codes for participating teams. Last day to apply for Clarifications regarding the Case (11:59 P.M. IST). Last day for submitting the soft copy of the Written Submission (11:59 P.M. IST). Last day for submitting the hard copy of the Written Submission (11:59 P.M. IST). Draw of Lots for Preliminary Rounds and Opponents Written Submissions to be mailed to the participating teams. 2 nd Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies International Moot Court Competition, Inaugural Ceremony. 8 th November 2014 Preliminary Rounds and Quarter-final Rounds. 9 th November 2014 Semi-final Rounds and Final Round. 10 th November 2014 Trip to Taj Mahal [4]

5 2 nd VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES INTERNATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION, Definitions RULES AND REGULATIONS 1.1. Administrator(s) means, any other person(s) appointed to administer the competition by the Advocates Legion Advocates Legion means, Vivekananda Law School Moot Court Society (VLSMCS) of Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies (VIPS, Delhi) 1.3. Competition means, the 2 nd Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies International Moot Court Competition, 2014 (hereinafter 2 nd VIPS IMC 2014) Competition Problem means, the official problem of the competition as supplemented or corrected by any official problem clarifications or corrections Judge means, any person appointed to evaluate a participant s oral pleadings Written submission means, the written pleadings of each participating college, written and submitted pursuant to these rules Problem Clarifications means, the official clarifications of the competition problem and of these rules, as published by the Administrator(s) Competition Rules means, these official rules of the competition and any applicable supplementary rules Participants means, student representatives from eligible colleges recognized by the Administrator(s) which compete in the competition, pursuant to Rule 3 and 4. [5]

6 2. Interpretation The interpretation placed upon these Rules by the Administrator(s) shall be conclusive. The decision of the Administrator(s) regarding the application of these Rules shall be final. 3. Participation And Eligibility 3.1. The Competition is open to all bonafide students, enrolled on a regular basis in an undergraduate course or its equivalent conducted by any recognized University/College/Institute Each team shall comprise of three members; two speakers and one researcher The members of the team must be designated as either Speaker or Researcher and such designation shall be conveyed to the Administrator(s) at the time of registration. Only those members designated as speakers will be permitted to put forth the oral arguments in the Competition Once registered, a team will not be permitted to vary the composition of the team in any manner. Changes, if any, may only be made with the express permission of the Administrator(s) (at their discretion), if plausible reason is shown for the same Any additional member or team coach of any team shall not be recognized as a participant and will not be entitled to a certificate from the Administrators. 4. Trip To Taj Mahal The Advocates Legion shall be organizing a trip to Taj Mahal, Agra on 10 th November, Each Participant interested in visiting Taj Mahal shall have to pay 1000 INR, cash on 7 th November, 2014 at the time of registration. 5. Registration 5.1 The date for teams to provisionally register their University/College/Institute for the Competition is 15 th July, Registration will be opened till 31 st August, 2014 (11:59 P.M. IST). 5.3 Registration Fees shall be 3500 INR. [6]

7 5.4 Soft copies of Registration Form and proof of payment of registration fees (i.e. Demand Draft/ Online Transfer Transaction Number or Bank Account Transfer Receipt Number) of 3500 INR shall be sent on by 31 st August, The Demand Draft shall be made in the name of Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies Law School. 5.6 Teams are required to fill all the sections of the Registration Form for participation in the 2 nd VIPS IMC The team registration form should reach via post to the Administrator(s) no later than 31 st August, :59 P.M. IST. Registration Forms received after this deadline will not be considered for participation in the competition. The registration form shall be addressed to the following: The President, 2 nd VIPS IMC 2014 Advocates Legion Vivekananda Law School Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, AU Block, Pitampura, New Delhi, India Phone: +91 (11) , , Phone: Ms. Deepti Kohli (Faculty Convenor) : Indian teams must make payment by Demand Draft. Payment by international teams may be made by Bank Transfer. 5.8 Upon receipt of the team Registration Form and Fees, the registered team shall be assigned a Team Code, for the purpose of further correspondence. 6. Accommodation, food and transport 6.1 Accommodation shall be provided to the teams for three days, i.e. from 7 th 9 th November, It shall be extended to the members of the team (maximum three) only. Teams shall be responsible for any/all damages caused by them during their stay. 6.2 Food shall be provided to all the teams only during the three days of the Competition. 6.3 Transportation shall be provided to the teams given accommodation. [7]

8 6.4 The teams from Delhi shall NOT be provided with accommodation or travel assistance. 7. Clarifications To The Case Teams may request for clarifications via to latest by the 15 th September, 2014 (11:59 P.M. IST). All clarifications shall be sent to the Participants via Structure Of The Competition 8.1. The Competition rounds shall be held over a period of three days from November 7 th 9 th, The inaugural function and the orientation of Participants will be held on 7 th November, The Competition shall consist of 4 Rounds: [i.] The Preliminary Rounds; [ii.] The Quarter Finals; [iii.] The Semi Finals; and [iv.] The Final Preliminary Rounds [i.] [ii.] The preliminary rounds will be held on 8 th November, In the preliminary rounds, each team shall argue once as the Prosecution and once as the Defense. The preliminary rounds shall be conducted in a single day. Each team shall argue from both sides i.e. Prosecution and Defense. The draw of lots for determining the opponent teams shall be conducted after the expiration of registration date, i.e. on 28 th October, It shall be the responsibility of the Administrator(s) to conduct the draw of lots and to inform the teams via . [iii.] All teams will be sent the opponent team's Written Submission for the preliminary rounds on 28 th October, No team shall be provided any information regarding the identity of their opponent teams or any other team. [iv.] The quarter finalists shall be determined in the following manner: (a.) At the end of the preliminary rounds, the top eight teams will qualify for the quarter finals. [8]

9 (b.) The top 8 teams will be selected on the basis of number of rounds won (two wins). (c.) In case of a tie, the team with higher marks in memorial will proceed to the Quarter Finals Quarter-Finals/Semi-Finals/Finals [i.] [ii.] The quarter finals will take place on 8 th November 2014 and the semi finals and finals will be held on 9 th November The Quarter-Finals/Semi-Finals/Finals will be knock-out rounds. In case of a tie, the total oral marks of the teams in the previous rounds shall be considered. The teams with the higher score will win. The side, on which the team will argue, will be decided by a draw of lots. [iii.] The teams will be provided with a hard copy of their opponent's Written Submission prior to the oral rounds. They are required to return the same after their rounds. 9. Written Submission 9.1. Each team is required to prepare a Written Submission for both, the Prosecution and the Defense of the case All teams shall send a soft copy of the Written Submission for each side in Adobe PDF format and Microsoft Word (.docx), via electronic mail, on or before 15 th October, 2014 (11:59 P.M. IST) to internationalmoot@vips.edu 9.3. Any submission after 15 th October, 2014 (11:59 P.M. IST) will be considered to be a one day delay and shall be penalized with 3 marks Teams shall send 9 hard copies of the Written Submissions for each side (9 for the Complainant and 9 for the Defense) by 20 th October, 2014 (11:59 P.M. IST) to the following address: The President, 2 nd VIPS IMC 2014 Advocates Legion Vivekananda Law School Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, AU Block, [9]

10 Pitampura, New Delhi, India Phone: +91 (11) , , Phone: Ms. Deepti Kohli (Faculty Convenor): The hard copies must be the exact print outs of the soft copy or else the team will be disqualified from the Competition. The teams are required to carry hard copies of their Written Submission for personal use, which are excluded from the copies already submitted The Written submission shall consist of the following mandatory heads: [i.] Cover Page [ii.] Table of Contents [iii.] List of Abbreviations [iv.] Index of Authorities [v.] Statement of Facts (not exceeding 2 pages) [vi.] Statements of Issues [vii.] Summary of the Written submission (not exceeding 3 pages) [viii.] Legal Pleadings (not exceeding 25 pages) [ix.] Request for Findings (not exceeding 1 page) 9.7. The Written Submission should not exceed the maximum limit of 40 (forty) pages in length, including the legal pleadings. The cover page of each Written Submission must contain the Team Code in the upper right-hand corner Teams shall cite authorities in the Written Submission using footnotes following the Bluebook Method of Citation (19 th edition). The Written Submission (including the preliminary pages) shall be typed on A4-sized paper, with the following mandatory specifications: [i.] Font type: Times New Roman [ii.] Font size: 12 [iii.] Line spacing: 1.5 [iv.] Body of text: Justified For Footnotes, the formatting specifications are: [i.] Font type: Times New Roman [ii.] Font size: 10 [10]

11 [iii.] Single spacing [iv.] Paragraph spacing: 0 [v.] No additional space between 2 footnotes 9.9. Each page (including the preliminary pages) should have a margin of 1 inch on each side. The Written Submission shall not contain any annexure, photographs, graphs, diagrams or any other representation of like nature. Footnotes should be limited to only citations or any other information relevant to the arguments. Footnotes should not, in any case, contain extra or irrelevant information or arguments Presentation of the Written Submission [i.] The Written Submission shall be spiral bound only. [ii.] The following color schemes shall be followed for the cover page of the Written Submission: (a.) Prosecution - BLUE (b.) Defense- RED Any Written Submission violating any of the specifications mentioned above will be penalized by deducting marks. 10. Oral Pleading Sessions Any form of scouting during the Competition is strictly prohibited and shall entail instant disqualification of the team. The decision of the Administrators in this regard shall be final The order in which teams shall submit their oral pleadings throughout the Competition shall be: Speaker 1 for Prosecution, Speaker 2 for Prosecution; Speaker 1 for Defense, Speaker 2 for Defense; Rebuttals shall be done by any one Speaker of the Team In case any opponent team fails to appear in an oral round, the round shall be conducted ex-parte and the scoring shall be done as if the defaulter team had been presenting and arguing Before the beginning of the oral rounds of any team, the Speakers of the team shall inform the court-marshal regarding the order of speaking as well as allocation of time between themselves and the time reserved for rebuttal. Once informed, the timings shall not be changed. If any speaker speaks for more than the time reserved for him/her, the extra time used by such speaker shall be deducted from the time allotted to the second speaker of that team. If the second speaker exceeds the time allotted to him/her, such time exceeded shall be deducted from the time reserved for rebuttals. [11]

12 10.5. The dress code for the competition as well as any official functions in the duration of the competition shall be professional business attire Compiled Research Material (Compendium) can be submitted to the court-marshal prior to the oral rounds which will be submitted to the judges at their discretion. Any further material may be passed at the discretion of the Judges. Team members can pass research materials to the speaker in a discreet manner During the oral rounds, teams shall not be allowed to use any electronic devices, like laptops, LCD projectors, video camera etc Any team violating any of the Rules with respect to the oral rounds may be disqualified. The decision of the Judges shall be final in this regard Preliminary/Quarter-Finals Rounds [i.] Each oral round will be for a period of 50 minutes, (inclusive of rebuttals) wherein each team will be allotted 25 minutes including the time for rebuttals. Any extension of time beyond this specified period is subject to the discretion of the Judges. [ii.] No speaker of a team shall speak for more the than 15 minutes, including time reserved for rebuttals. [iii.] No team shall reserve more than 3 minutes for rebuttals Semi - Finals [i.] Each oral round will be for a period of 60 minutes, (including rebuttals), wherein each team will be allowed 30 minutes. Any extension of time beyond this specified period is subject to the discretion of the Judges. [ii.] No speaker of a team shall speak for more than 18 minutes, including the time reserved for rebuttals. [iii.] No team shall reserve more than 5 minutes for rebuttals Finals [i.] [ii.] Each oral round will be for a period of 80 minutes (including rebuttals) wherein each team will be allowed 40 minutes. Any extension of time beyond this specified period is subject to the discretion of the Judges. No speaker of a team shall speak for more than 20 minutes, including the time reserved for rebuttals. [12]

13 [iii.] No team shall reserve more than 5 minutes for rebuttals Teams must not reveal their University or country of origin or names of the Participants anywhere in the Written Submission or in the course of the Oral arguments, a team must be identified only by the team code that will be allotted to each team after registration. Violation of anonymity rules at any point will lead to disqualification and will not be subject to challenge. 11. Evaluation Criteria for Written Submission [i.] Application of Law and Facts 25% [ii.] Reasoning 25% [iii.] Use of Authorities and Precedent 25% [iv.] Presentation 25% 12. Evaluation Criteria for Oral Pleading Session [i.] Interpretation of Facts & its Application 20% [ii.] Response to questions and Articulation 20% [iii.] Use of Authorities and Precedents 20% [iv.] Reasoning in the Application of Principles 20% [v.] Advocacy skills, Court Craft and Demeanor 20% 13. Miscellaneous The Administrator(s) reserve the right to amend, modify, change or repeal any of the Competition Rules at any point of time. The Administrator(s) shall communicate any changes made in the Competition Rules to the teams The Administrator(s) reserve the right to take decisions on any matter not mentioned in the Competition Rules. Any such decision taken by the Administrator(s) shall be final and binding The Administrator(s) reserve the right to interpret any of the Competition Rules. Such interpretation shall be final and binding The Administrator(s) may depart from these Competition Rules in exceptional circumstances, in which case it shall inform all teams of the reasons for such departure The Copyright in the written submission of the teams shall vest with Vivekananda Law School. Vivekananda Law School shall not be responsible for any liability accrued to any person or for any loss caused to any person because of the content of the written [13]

14 submissions No audio or videotaping of oral pleadings is permitted without the permission of the Administrator(s) The Administrator(s) reserve all rights to audio and videotaping, or any other form of audio or visual reproduction, of any oral round or part thereof If a team believes that violation of the Competition Rules has taken place at any stage of the competition, the teams within half an hour after the completion of the round in which violation has allegedly occurred should register a complaint with the President of the Advocates Legion Teams under no circumstances shall approach the Judges with any complaints. 14. Awards Best Team shall be given an award and a cash prize of 25,000 INR and a Cash Prize of 15,000 INR shall be awarded to the Runner-Up Team There will be an award and Cash Prize of 10,000 INR for the Best Memorial There will be an award and Cash Prize of 10,000 INR for the Best Speaker The Best team will be determined by the highest aggregate score of all rounds that the contestant has argued divided by the number of rounds All participants will get Certificates of Participation and all the winners of awards specified will get Certificates of Appreciation. [14]

15 2 ND VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES INTERNATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION, 2014 REGISTRATION FORM NAME OF /Institute/COLLEGE/ Universty: Speaker 1: Name: Year, Course: Contact No.: Speaker 2: Name: Year, Course: Contact No.: Researcher: Name: Year, Course: Contact No.: THE SPEAKERS AND THE RESEARCHER ARE THE BONAFIDE STUDENTS OF THE COLLEGE. Signature & Seal of the Head of the Institution [15]

16 2 ND VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES INTERNATIONAL MOOT COURT COMPETITION, 2014 TRAVEL PLAN Kindly the Travel Plan to the Administrator(s) on or before 1 st November, Name of the Institution: ARRIVAL Date of Arrival: Mode (Train/Airways/Bus): Number (Train/Airways/Bus): Time of arrival of Train/Airways/Bus: Other Details (like name of railway station/bus stop/airport etc.): Signature and seal of the University/College/Institute [16]