The University of Chicago’s Moot Court Team won the North American Regional Round of the 29th Stetson International Environmental Moot Court Competition. The team, made up of six UChicago College students, competed against law schools from throughout the US and Canada. They will now move on to Stetson’s international competition in April.
The UChicago team won with both their written legal brief and oral advocacy in the Stetson Competition, the world’s largest international environmental law competition. This year’s theme concerned subsistence use and trophy hunting. In their case, the UChicago team researched how international law balances indigenous sovereignty, environmental protection and free trade.
“The legal issues in our case were novel areas of international law; there is very little existing jurisprudence in cases where indigenous subsistence interests and environmental conservation principles are at odds,” said Moot Court co-president Vikram Ramaswamy.
“Nothing about these arguments was scripted in advance. There were moments where all of our preparation was thrown out the window, and we just engaged with curious judges and talked through difficult hypothetical questions. It felt even more special because these judges were so accomplished in this field.”
UChicago’s Moot Court team is a student-run organization with upwards of 75 members, and it has a history of international success. Last year, Ramaswamy won the Oral Advocacy portion of the same competition alongside Anna Guzman (’24), who guided this year’s team as their alumni coach. Their members go onto some of the top law schools in the country.
Before the contest, Ramaswamy honed his environmental law knowledge at the COP29 international climate conference as a member of the Institute-sponsored student delegation.
“The trip to COP29 was the experience of a lifetime and provided a substantive basis for the arguments that we advanced during the competition,” Ramaswamy said. “Thanks to my experience at COP29, I was able to better understand and convey WTO caselaw to my teammates and to judges. More broadly, the chance to attend COP29 solidified my personal passion for international law as it relates to environmental conservation, indigenous sovereignty, and sustainability principles.”