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The Law School’s Jessup International Moot Court team will represent the U.S. in the competition’s international rounds

March 10, 2022

The White & Case International Rounds will begin in late March.

By Ryan Cheung LLM’22

The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School’s Jessup International Moot Court team has achieved stellar results in the 2022 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. The team is comprised of oralists Ravid Reif L’22, Peter Neal L’22, Axel Sarkissian L’23, and Noor Irshaidat L’23 as well as 1L Board Members Paul-Angelo dell’Isola L’24 and Alara Hanci L’24 and student coach Ryan Cheung LLM ’22.

Held every year since 1960, the Jessup is the world’s largest international moot court competition during which participants grapple with contentious international law issues facing countries in real life. The Jessup 2022 Competition concerns human rights on the Internet, data theft, secession of a part of a nation, and foreign election interference.

Teams from different countries must qualify in their respective national rounds to compete internationally. In the U.S. regional round, the top 16 teams from a pool of 85 advance to compete in the White & Case International Rounds. The Law School’s team displayed excellent advocacy skills to reach the quarterfinals in the regional rounds, ranking in the top 12 from the pool, and will compete on the international level representing the United States in late March.

“It has been a great experience,” said Reif. “I am very proud of this team for their dedication throughout this process and their resilience in the face of the many challenges the competition has brought so far. We are excited represent Penn Law in the International Rounds in March!”

Remarkably, every oralist on the team was listed amongst the Top 50 Oralists in the regional rounds, which is a deserving testament to their months of hard work fine-tuning oral arguments and perfecting their written memoranda.

The team would like to extend its thanks to Professor of Law William Burke-White and Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science Jacques deLisle for serving as guest judges in practice sessions.

Learn more about moot court opportunities at the Law School.