Team from Tbilisi State University
became runner-up of the All-European International Humanitarian Law and
Refugee Law Moot Court Competition. The team of International Law
students
Ana Tskipurishvili,
Iva Vasadze and
Tamar Chkhitunidze, coached by Dr.
Saba Pipia, TSU International
Law Institute lecturer, successfully participated in three preliminary
rounds as well as pleaded in quarter-final and semi-final (two
pleadings) and consequently qualified as finalist team. International
round of the competition was hosted by the University of Ljubljana
(Slovenia) on November 20-25, 2018 and co-organized by the International
Committee of the Red Cross, Office of the UN High Commissioner of
Refugees, Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia and the
University of Ljubljana.
The team had to plead before the
competent international jury on the actual and novel topics of
international humanitarian law and refugee law, such as: legality of
autonomous weapon systems, cyber attack and conduct of hostilities,
forcible displacement, relocation schemes for refugees, principle of
non-refoulment, war crimes and etc.
The TSU team was prepared under the supervision of professors and researchers of the International Law Institute. As Professor
Levan Alexidze in his capacity
of Director of International Law Institute established the wider
framework of this direction of TSU’s internationalization, Prof. Dr.
Ketevan Khutsishvili, whose
name is associated with introduction of refugee law and international
criminal law courses as separate disciplines in TSU curricula, and PhD
student of the Institute –
Onisime Tskhomelidze also supported the team preparations.
The
All European International Humanitarian Law and Refugee Law Moot Court
Competition was held for the third time this year. Totally 18 law
schools from the universities of Vienna, Budapest, Istanbul, Warsaw and
other European universities took part in the competition. In the final
round, TSU team competed versus Comnenius University of Bratislava,
which won the competition.
This year’s edition of the moot court
was preceded by the round table discussions with participation of
professors of international humanitarian law and refugee law from the
central and south-east Europe. Participants of the meeting shared their
experience in teaching these subjects and also discussed challenges in
this regard. TSU was represented at the professors roundtable and the
subsequent conference devoted to the topics of the moot court
competition by Prof. Dr. Ketevan Khutsishvili and Dr. Saba Pipia.
