College of Law Team Participates in Copenhagen Competition

By Habtamu Hailemeskel/ College of Law

Haramaya University College of Law negotiation team participated in the international oral round of the Copenhagen International Negotiation Competition that was organized by University of Copenhagen.

The competition took place among invited universities primarily based on written submissions. Back in May 2014, a team from Haramaya University College of Law had submitted the memorial (written submission) to the competition’s organizer and received a confirmation that it would participate in the international oral round to compete with Australian National University, Hebrew University, National University of Singapore, University of Cape Town, University of Barcelona and University of Copenhagen.

This year’s competition was unique from earlier competitions in that the participants were from various disciplines and the competition was multidisciplinary. Haramaya University’s team comprised of two law students and other two students from the Institute of Technology (Electrical and Computer Engineering student and another Mechanical Engineering student).

The theme of this year’s competition is Sustainable Energy Trade Agreement (SETA). Students that participated in the competition negotiated an international agreement which aimed at liberalizing trade in green energy technology. The participants were required to represent a fictitious state and guard its interests in the negotiation.

The profile of the fictitious country was required to reflect the actual situation in a country from which they originate. They named their fictitious country “Abisthiopia” and choose coffee as a product to be included in the SETA list to get a duty-free treatment while trading. The technology students provided a scientific explanation as to how coffee production is environmental friendly and could contribute in mitigating Green House Gases (GHGs) emissions. Law students provided a legal framework for regulating trade in sustainable energy goods and services within the World Trade Organizational structure.

The competition involved a round table negotiation among teams of seven universities, including Haramaya University, and was chaired by three negotiators. One negotiation session featured four universities and HU team was featured in all of the four sessions of the preliminary round by representing Ethiopia and the interests of least developed countries.

They also participated in the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) Sustainability Science Congress 2014 that took place from October 22-24, 2014. In the congress, hundreds of research papers which focused on sustainability and climate change were presented by prominent researchers. Around sixty posters were presented for participants of the conference and HU team also presented its poster on 22^nd of October.

The team was also able to meet the Prime Minister of Denmark at the Global Green Growth Forum 2014 (commonly known as 3GF) where government leaders and business representatives met to discuss on green growth. The team also met some members of the Ethiopian delegation in this forum. The team is back home on Saturday, October 25 with practical experience of negotiation skills and with the published compilation of their written submissions.

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 participated in the earlier edition of the same competition focusing on Access to Medicine which was held in 2010.