05/10/2017
Dear friends!
So our Competition-2017 have come to an end. It was an unforgettable week - bright, full of events and impressions. And we, the organizers, are very sad now – when such warm and interesting meetings finished. Thus it was.
In 2017, the XII International Law Competition “Youth for Peace” – an annual competition on international humanitarian law for students and undergraduates – was held at the International University “MITSO” from September 25 to 29.
This year 11 teams from Armenia, Belarus, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine struggled for the right to become the winner of the Competition. Judges of the Competition are recognized experts in international humanitarian law sphere from Belarus, Great Britain, Spain, the Netherlands and France – Lionel Blackman, Michael J. Strauss, Olivier Ribbelink, David Turns, Paulino Pardo, Alena F. Dovgan and Ekaterina Kuznetsova. Traditionally, in the framework of the Competition we held the International Law Days – the honorable judges L. Blackman, M. Strauss, O. Ribbelink and D. Turns delivered open lectures for all comers.
The opening ceremony of the Competition took place on 26 of September. Among guests and University partners who were invited to the ceremony were heads and representatives of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus, the Moscow Regional Delegation of International Committee of the Red Cross and the Belarusian Red Cross Society, the United Nations Office in Belarus and others as well as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Moldova in the Republic of Belarus, representatives of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Belarus and of the Rossotrudnichestvo, of the Department of Military Education of the Belarusian Armed Forces and other honorable representatives.
On September 25, 2017, on the eve of the opening of the Competition, the University with the support of the Information Point of the Council of Europe in Minsk held the II Round Table of the Belarusian Branch of the International Law Association on the theme “Multidimensional protection of individual rights in the modern international law” in which Belarusian and foreign experts in the field of international humanitarian law took part.
In 2017, the emulative part of the Competition was based on the feature film “The Lord of the Rings” in the form of a role-playing game in which the team members acted as advisers and authorized persons on the issues of an armed conflict qualification as well as representatives of the parties at the court on combating mercenaries. They also gave legal qualifications to the armed conflict, defined responsibility for environmental damage and so on.
In order to acquaint participants and judges of the contest with the culture and history of Belarus as well as to deepen the interethnic dialogue and cooperation, we organized the National Cultures Evening, where teams were able to present their countries and educational institutions. In addition, the participants visited the National Library of Belarus, the sights of Minsk and felt themselves combatants in the lasertag battle. The teams also demonstrated their creativity in the essay and posters contest on the current challenges of international humanitarian law.
According to the results of the competitive week, the team of the MGIMO University became the winner of the Competition for the second time in a row. The team of the Russian-Armenian University (RAU) was awarded a runner-up team. Kovalerchik Mikhail, the captain of the semifinalist team from the Higher School of Economics (St. Petersburg), was recognized the best speaker in the contest. The representative of the RAU team Mane Hakobyan was awarded the special prize of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus for the “Best legal argumentation”.
On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the XII International Law Competition “Youth for Peace” and the International University “MITSO” we thank our respected participants, judges and partners – all of you made these days unforgettable! We were glad to see you within the walls of our University!
See you next year!