NUS Law wins the 34th Jean-Pictet Humanitarian Law Competition 2020

(L-R) Yomna Mohamed Abdelaziz Elewa ’20, Christine Saw Hui Ying ’20, Li Xingyi ’20

The Jean-Pictet Competition is a unique international humanitarian law (IHL) competition where students role play as stakeholders involved in the use and implementation of IHL. Its key objective is to take the law out of the books and for students to learn, compete and meet. For students wishing to work in the field of IHL, international relations, international criminal law, or refugee law, having participated in the Competition is a major asset in a curriculum vitae, as demonstrated by the professional profile of many former participants.

In what may well be the last (non-virtual) international competition of this academic year, the 34th edition of the competition was held in Denpasar, Bali, from February to March 2020. NUS Law students, Christine Saw Hui Ying ’20, Li Xingyi ’20 and Yomna Mohamed Abdelaziz Elewa ’20 represented NUS, bringing home the champion’s trophy to NUS for the second time. NUS first won in 2015 and all three 2015 team members (Lee Ji En ’17, Huang Peide ’16 and Zulhafni Zulkeflee ’15) were part of the coaching team this year (together with fellow Jean-Pictet alumni, Goh Keng Huang ’15 and Cai Xiao Han ’18).

The NUS Law team after receiving the trophy with their tutor, Guillemette Blanc

The NUS Law team after they were announced as Champions of the Jean-Pictet competition

Reflections from Christine Saw Hui Ying ’20, Li Xingyi ’20 and Yomna Mohamed Abdelaziz Elewa ’20

The NUS Law team with the University of Tokyo team after facing each other in the semi-finals

From 7 to 14 March, we participated in the 34th edition of the Jean-Pictet Humanitarian Law Competition. There were 8 preliminary rounds and 45 participating teams from all over the world. The competition mimics the outbreak of a fictional armed conflict and the story evolves as the days progress. We were tested on our legal knowledge while having to play different roles in the context of this fictional armed conflict and were given 1-2 hours to prepare before each round. These roles varied from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of a particular country, military legal advisors, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and even representatives to the UN.

Four universities made it to the finals: NUS, New York University, the University of Essex and Geneva Academy. During the round, we were pitted against each other as 3 different presidential candidates on a live televised debate. There were around 70-100 participants in the audience. This was an unusual round because we could not work together as a team during the round itself. Teamwork was one of our strengths, so not being able to collaborate was challenging and brought us out of our comfort zone. It was a very strenuous and stressful round, but we pulled through. We were told that we won the finals because we were able to weave the most legal analysis into the role play.

We grew a lot as a team and as speakers in this competition. Our tutor, Guillemette Blanc, an ICRC field officer in South Sudan, had us set individual goals for the competition and we managed to improve on them throughout the 10 rounds. Having met people working in the field of humanitarian law through this competition, we walked away with a profound appreciation for this field of work

The NUS Law team interviewing a military commander during the competition

Role-playing as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)