A team of UNSW law students was the runner-up in the Australian round of the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition (http://www.ilsa.org/jessup/) and will go on to compete in the international rounds in Washington in April.

Tom Levi, Brent Michael, Hernan Pintos-Lopez, Derek Wong and Rebecca Zaman were asked to address the tension in international law between ensuring human rights and responding to acts of terrorism. They were coached by David Hume, the Associate to the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

The team won prizes for the best written submissions overall and the best written submissions for the respondent. Brent Michael and Rebecca Zaman also won best speaker awards.

"The Jessup Moot is the world's most prestigious international law mooting competition", says Dr Jane McAdam, Director of UNSW's International Law Moot Program. "It requires excellent skills in legal research, analysis, persuasive oral argument and team work. The team members have to get their heads around some very complex and challenging contemporary legal questions and formulate arguments on both sides of the case."

More than 1500 students from 300 law schools in over 50 countries participate in the competition each year.