NYU Law School students Jared Wessel, Delfin Rodriquez, Martin Molina, and David Bennion made it all the way to the final round of the 2002/03 edition of the WTO Moot Court Competition before ceding victory to the University of London (UCL) in a hotly contested final held at the WTO headquarters in Geneva. NYU made it through a tough preliminary round, where they defeated both the Universite de Geneve and the team they would later meet in the finals, UCL. For their work in the preliminary rounds, Martin Molina and Delfin Rodriquez both won honorable mention for 'best oralist'.

In the semi-final round, NYU defeated Martin-Luther-University of Germany before a three-person panel consisting of Professor Thomas Cottier, Professor Robert Howse of the University of Michigan and Ms. Gabrielle Marceau. Pleading for the respondent, Jared Wessel and David Bennion faced questions from the panel regarding the interaction of general international law and the WTO.

In the final round, the full team gathered to argue before a panel consisting of distinguished scholars and practitioners in WTO Law, many of whom were past Panel and/or Appellate Body members: Prof. Jacques Bourgeois, Prof. Thomas Cottier, Prof. Claus-Dieter Ehlermann, Prof. Frank Emmert, Ms. Valerie Hughes, and Prof. Elisabetta Montaguti.

38 teams from Europe and the United States competed in the preliminary written rounds for twelve places in the final oral rounds. All participating teams were asked to present memorials - both for the claimant and for the respondent, which were later judged individually and independently by two academics. NYU was the only U.S. team admitted to the finals.

The competition, organized and cosponsored by the European Law Students Association (ELSA - www.elsa.org), centers around a hypothetical trade dispute arising from the imposition of an import ban on fish products by a large economic bloc on a country that allows the hunting of whales for scientific purposes in spite of a moratorium on commercial whaling.

The team wishes to thank the Hauser Global Law School Program, Professor Joseph H.H. Weiler, Professor Iqbal S. Ishar, and Professor Benedict Kingsbury for all their help and support in making NYU's participation possible. Hopefully, NYU's participation in this prestigious competition will be a continuous event.

NYU Law School students Jared Wessel, Delfin Rodriguez, Martin Molina, and David Bennion, have qualified for the final oral rounds of the 2003 World Trade Organization Moot Court Competition, to be held on April 23-27 at the WTO Centre in Geneva, Switzerland.

26 teams from Europe and the United States competed in the preliminary written rounds for seven places in the final rounds. All participating teams were asked to present memorials - both for the claimant and the respondent, which were later judged individually and independently by two academics. NYU was the only U.S. team admitted to the finals.

The competition, organized and cosponsored by the European Law Students Association, centers around a hypothetical trade dispute arising from the imposition of an import ban on fish products by a large economic bloc on a country that allows the hunting of whales for scientific purposes in spite of a moratorium on commercial whaling.