Stanford Law School Jessup Moot Court students will soon go where no other SLS Jessup team has gone before–to the White & Case International Rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition where they will serve as one of 12 teams to represent the United States.

The competition, currently in its 56^th year, is known as the world largest moot court competition with more than 550 law schools in 80 countries that participate. This will mark the first time an SLS team has made it to the international round.

The team, made up of Cassandra Kildow, JD ’16, John Kenney, JD ’16, Vivek Tata, JD ’16, Giulia Scelzo, JD ’16, Mengyi Xu, JD ’17, Desley Horton, LLM ’15, and Udit Sood, LM’15, qualified for the competition after their victory at the Rocky Mountain Regional Round held at the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver on February 19-22.

“Winning the regional competition is the culmination of months of research and moot practices,” said Horton. “The team is excited to represent Stanford Law School and the United States at the International Rounds.”

“The Jessup regional victory is a great outcome, one that reflects the ever-growing passion and sophistication of students interested in international law issues here at Stanford,” said Allen S. Weiner, Senior Lecturer in Law and the team’s faculty advisor. “The Jessup event is extremely competitive, and at many law schools it is a formal part of the curriculum; students enroll in a class, prepare multiple drafts of their briefs, and compete in preliminary rounds against other teams from the school. Our students established this year’s Jessup team as an extracurricular matter on their own initiative, and did virtually all of the work independently.”

This season’s “Jessup Problem” focuses on procedural and substantive issues arising from the secession of one province of a nation and its annexation into another. “The parties are fictional, but the various issues bear similarities to conflicts in various parts of the world” said Horton.

The White & Case International Rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition will be held in Washington D.C. on April 5-11. The winner of those rounds will then compete for the Jessup Cup World Championship title on April 11.