11. Helga Pedersen Moot Court Competition (WS 2022/23)
Cologne team reaches quarter-finals at final round in Strasbourg
From 22 to 26 May 2023, the final round of the 11th Helga Pedersen Moot Court Competition took place at the premises of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Beforehand, the Cologne team, consisting of Emily Dukat, Anne Kleine-Möllhoff, Annalisa Romano and Sara Weber Martin, was able to qualify for the final round as one of 18 out of around 60 European teams through their briefs and a successful international oral preliminary round in Georgia.
The Helga Pedersen Moot Court Competition is organised by the European Law Students' Association (ELSA) and deals with topical issues within the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights. This year, the case deals with issues regarding the recognition of paternity in surrogacy contracts, adoption rights for same-sex couples and effective legal protection under the Convention.
The Cologne team competed in the final round on the side of the plaintiff and on the side of the defendant state and thus had the unique opportunity to demonstrate the rhetorical and argumentative skills they had learned in front of human rights experts of the Council of Europe. The Cologne team was then able to successfully compete against 10 other teams in the quarter-finals and finally finished the final round as one of the best 8 teams.
The competition was accompanied by an academic social programme, extended evening events and various receptions. These were organised by the Permanent Representation of the United Kingdom to the Council of Europe and the City of Strasbourg, among others. This gave the teams the opportunity to network and make valuable contacts.
Since the beginning of the Moot Court in August 2022, the Cologne team has been coached by Lisa Kujus and Frederic Kupsch, research assistants at the Academy for the Protection of European Human Rights (Professor Dr Angelika Nußberger), who also accompanied the team during the intensive final round in Strasbourg.
Emily Dukat is in her third semester of studying German and French law at the University of Cologne. She has always been interested in the topic of justice and related issues. During her time at school, she first realised that you have the opportunity to make a difference through your own commitment, so she was active as a Reutlingen youth council member and got involved in founding the FridaysForFuture local group in Reutlingen. She became aware of the omnipresence and fundamental importance of human rights in particular through her participation in the summer academy Ambassadors in Sneakers of the German-American Institute Tübingen, where all participants dealt intensively with the topic of human rights for four weeks. Participation at AiS, as well as an Erasmus+ exchange with Finland regarding sustainability in the textile industry and increased engagement with climate change, made Emily realise the importance of international cooperation and interaction with human rights in all these areas. Furthermore, school exchanges and a voluntary social year in Poland taught her how different everyday realities and access to many goods can be due to various factors, which in turn are related to human rights issues. Therefore, she is very much looking forward to participating in the Moot Court and having the opportunity to deal with such issues in teamwork and to gain first practical experience.
Anne Kleine-Möllhoff is in her 7th semester of law at the University of Cologne. After graduating from high school, she worked for Amnesty International, which strengthened her desire to work in a human rights-related job later on. The importance of human rights and their protection were and are the motivation for her to take up a law degree. Her areas of interest therefore lie in particular in international law, in which she will complete her major from this semester onwards. She is particularly looking forward to gaining practical experience in this area by participating in the Helga Pedersen Moot Court Competition. She is also looking forward to exchanging ideas on human rights protection with students from all over Europe. She has also been politically involved in the Green Youth for five years, fighting for gender justice in particular. Within this engagement, she has also worked for a member of the Bundestag, through which she got to know and love working in a small team. In her free time, Anne loves to cook and can otherwise be found reading on the university lawn.
Annalisa Romano was born and raised in Rheinfelden in 2001. After graduating from high school in 2019, she travelled to Southeast Asia and had the opportunity to get to know different cultures. Following this, she moved to Cologne to study law and is now in her 5th semester. In the course of her studies, she became particularly interested in international law issues and problems. She was able to pursue her curiosity about foreign legal systems by participating in the CUSL programme on US-American law. Through this she also deepened her knowledge of the English language. She is also a native Italian speaker and works as a student assistant at the Institute for Intellectual Property Law. By participating in the Moot Court, she hopes to gain deep insights into the field of human rights protection and have a good time outside of her usual law studies. The close cooperation in the team will also make the Moot Court very special for her. In her free time, she enjoys sports, cooking and reading books.
Sara Weber Martin is in her 6th semester of law at the University of Cologne. Already during her time at school, she experienced through her extracurricular involvement, for example in the Mediatoren AG or the school paramedics, that you can make a difference early on. Through her social internship in a day-care centre, where she worked with children with refugee experience, she realised how important human rights issues are. Out of the need to use what she had learned in a helpful way, she completed the semester course on asylum and residence law at the Refugee Law Clinic Cologne in 2021, where she is a member. Growing up bilingual and therefore confronted with different cultures, she realised how central international communication and understanding on common ground is. That is why she did her administrative internship at "Deutsche Welle" to contribute to international exchange hand in hand with the editorial staff. At that time, the conflicts with Russia began to come to a head, which is why human rights issues were often on the agenda. Captivated by communication law issues, she began working as a student assistant at the Institute for Media and Communication Law. Here it became clear to her once again how strands of thought can develop further in joint discourse. In this respect, she is already looking forward to dealing with human rights issues in teamwork through the Moot Court.