Georgia law students win ODIHR’s first moot court competition on the rights of people with disabilities

A team of law students from the Free University of Tbilisi has won the final of the moot court competition on the rights of people with disabilities hosted in Warsaw today by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The competition was the first of its kind organized by ODIHR, together with the Centre for Disability Law and Policy of the National University of Ireland, Galway.

The Georgian students were competing against a team from the University of California, Berkeley (United States). In a mock set-up of a Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the competitors argued a fictitious case regarding the rights of people with disabilities to vote and to be part of the justice sector.

The winning team was decided by a panel of judges consisting of Gerard Quinn, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Theresia Degener, Professor of Law and Disability Studies and Director of the Bochum Center for Disability Studies (BODYS) in Germany, and ODIHR Rule of Law Adviser Carolyn Hammer.

“The rights of people with disabilities is a very important topic, both in Georgia and beyond,” said Ekaterine Subeliani, a member of the winning team. “The moot court helps raise awareness about this subject and I am very grateful for the chance to participate. It was also a great opportunity to meet and learn from such experienced judges as well as from our competitors.”

Emma Lapinsky from the University of California, Berkeley team won the “best oralist” title.

“It was a very important hands-on educational experience,” she said. “It can promote students going into the field of disability rights, as well as students who are more broadly interested in human rights law. For me, this opportunity was really incredible all the way through.”

The winning team will be invited to take part in a summer school on the rights of people with disabilities organized by the National University of Ireland, Galway.

The two finalist teams were selected from a total of eleven teams from all over the OSCE region — from North America to Central Asia — which submitted written statements on the competition topic for the first round held earlier this year.

The competition helped the participants learn more about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well as the work of ODIHR in promoting inclusive, diverse and gender-sensitive justice sector institutions across the OSCE region and the participation of people with disabilities in political and public life.

Teams from the following universities took part:

Free University of Tbilisi, Georgia

National University of Ireland, Galway, Centre for Disability Law and Policy, Ireland

Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland

South East European University, North Macedonia

Sulkhan-Saba Orbelliani University, Georgia

Tbilisi State University, Georgia

University of Bialystok, Poland

University of California, Berkeley, United States

University of Cologne, Academy for European Human Rights Protection, Germany

University of Niš, Serbia

University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Uzbekistan