The Geneva Academy Team Reaches the Semi-Finals of the 2017 Jean-Pictet Competition

10 April 2017

Congratulations to the Geneva Academy team – Jemma Arman, Isabelle Gallino and Benjamin Tippett – for reaching the semi-finals of the prestigious 2017 Jean-Pictet Competition!

48 teams from all over the globe were selected to participate in the 2017 edition of this leading international humanitarian law (IHL) competition, held in Borjomi, Georgia, from 18 to 24 March 2017. ‘Spending time with all the competitors, especially my teammates, was a great opportunity’ recalls Benjamin Tippett.

Burning Issues in International Humanitarian Law

During one week, Jemma, Isabelle and Benjamin played different roles including lawyers representing detainees, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) negotiating access, an armed non-state actor coordinating attacks, a government responding to cyber-attacks, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) interviewing internally displaced persons, government lawyers interviewed by the media, and the United States of America at the UN Security Council.

‘I enjoyed being part of a challenging environment with people from all around the world with the same passion for IHL’ stresses Isabelle Gallino. ‘I really liked the constant testing on the hot topics in IHL like peacekeeping, semi-autonomous weapons or cyber warfare’ underlines Jemma Arman, who was nominated for the Gilbert-Apollis prize for best competition’s speaker.

The Jean-Pictet Competition: An Integral Part of the LLM Curriculum

Participation in this major international law competition forms part of the LLM in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights curriculum.

The three LLM students – Jemma Arman, Isabelle Gallino and Benjamin Tippett – were selected following a competitive process. The team was coached by George Dvaladze, teaching assistant at the Geneva Academy and PhD candidate at the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva .

The Jean-Pictet Competition

The Jean-Pictet Competition is recognized as the leading international humanitarian law (IHL) competition and one of the most innovative training programmes for students in public international law. It is a week-long event that tests students on their knowledge of and ability to implement IHL, as well as other branches of international law, through role-playing exercises based on a hypothetical armed conflict scenario. The dynamic structure of the competition encourages participants to consider IHL issues from various perspectives, while allowing the jury to evaluate each team's theoretical knowledge, practical understanding, and presentation style.

In 2016, the Geneva Academy team won this prominent IHL moot.