The John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition is a project of ELSA International that consist in a simulation of the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system.

The participants are competing in teams of 2 to 4 students, they are first providing Written Submissions for the Complainant and the Respondent of a fictitious case. These documents represent the legal argumentation of the parties.

The rounds of the competition

1. The Written Round

The teams taking part in the competition having between four and five months to draft two written submissions, one for each side of the dispute (Complainant and Respondent)

Once drafted, and edited following the strict rules of the competition, they need to submit these documents for them to be scored by the panelists of the John H. Jackson Moot.

Important: This round is not eliminatory, and all the teams submitting the written submissions will take part in the Regional Rounds. There the scores of the written submissions will be added to the scores they will receive in their pleading.

2. The Regional Rounds

All the teams that submitted a Written Submission will proceed to one of the 6 Regional Oral Rounds, depending on their location. They will there plead against each other.

The six rounds are:

First and Second European Regional Rounds (including all the countries where an ELSA group is present)

 East Asia & Oceania Regional Round

West & South Asia Regional Round

All American Regional Round

African Regional Round 

They will first plead for the Complainant and the Respondent side in the preliminary sessions, then the four best teams will plead during the Semi-Final of the regional round and then in the Final. 

3. Final Oral Round

The 25 best teams of the Regional Rounds gather in Geneva, at the WTO Headquarters, where the Final Oral Round of the competition takes place at the end of June.

The Final Oral Round is structured in the same way as the regional rounds, with preliminary sessions and advanced sessions.

On the side of the external relations, the Competition is supported by multiple sponsors and supporters, some cooperating with ELSA on the competition for many years. These partners are divided in categories: