By Habtamu Hailemeskel/ College of Law
Haramaya University’s College of Law Negotiation Team has qualified to participate in the International Oral Round of the Copenhagen Moot Court Competition which will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark from 19 – 21 October 2014.
The competition is only by invitation from the competition organizer, University of Copenhagen (Denmark). There is a competition among invited universities based on written submission. Recently, Haramaya University’s College of Law Negotiation Team submitted the memorial (written submission) to the competition organizer and received a confirmation that it has been competitively selected to participate in the International Oral Round of the competition to compete with other major international universities such as Australian National University, Hebrew University, National University of Singapore, University of Cape Town, University of Barcelona and University of Copenhagen. All travel and in-country costs are covered by the competition organizer.
This year’s competition is unique from earlier competitions in that the participants are from various disciplines and the competition is multidisciplinary. Haramaya University’s team comprises two (2) law students- 4th year students Mahlet Tassew and Haileysus Tadele and two (2) Institute of Technology 4th year students- Getahun Abdi, Mechanical Engineering and Getnet Mesele, Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The theme of this year’s competition is Sustainable Energy Trade Agreement (SETA). Students that participate in the competition will negotiate an international agreement which is aimed at liberalizing trade in green energy technology. They will also participate in the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) Sustainability Science Congress 2014. This will take place from October 20-24, 2014 (also held in Copenhagen, Denmark). Students will learn how to negotiate an international agreement and how to ensure their countries interests are incorporated in the agreement during the process of negotiation.
The Copenhagen competition was originally launched in 2009 where students negotiated their version of the post-Kyoto Agreement. Since then, there have been editions of the competition focusing on Access to Medicine and Access to Food. College of Law team was selected to participate in the earlier edition of the same competition focusing on Access to Medicine which was held in 2010.