Moot Court 2013 - The thirteenth Commonwealth Moot

The thirteenth Commonwealth Moot will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 14th April to 18th April 2013, in conjunction with the 18th Commonwealth Law Conference (CLC).
The Commonwealth Moot is an initiative of the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA) and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA).
It is an ‘invitation-only’ Moot, being limited to representatives from regions of the Commonwealth only.
The regions, for the this purpose, are; North America, United Kingdom, the Caribbean, South Asia (India), South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), South East Asia, West Africa , East Africa, Southern Africa, Australasia (Australia and New Zealand send separate teams), and the South Pacific.
The teams that represent the regions are nominated by the CLEA representatives who base their nominations on the results of the continental, regional or national moot competitions involving Commonwealth countries in their regions.
The Commonwealth Moot has generally been held concurrently with the Commonwealth Law Conference (CLC).
In 2001 however, it was held separately from CLC since the CLC itself was postponed because of issues in Zimbabwe. Instead, the CLEA held its own conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, along with the Commonwealth Moot.
It has been the tradition that, wherever the competition is held, the local law society plays a major role in entire competition runs smoothly.
A significant feature of the Commonwealth Moot has been the willingness of members of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and associated organisations, who attend the Commonwealth Law Conference, to readily forgo their valuable time to judge the moots of the competition.
This willingness shown by the senior members of the Commonwealth Bar and the Judiciary sets the Commonwealth Moot apart from other moots. There are very few international mooting competitions in which the bench judging the finals, more often than not, consists of Chief Justices from countries, provinces and states across the Commonwealth.
Despite the above arrangements, it is with great regret that we are compelled to announce a change in the practice of making contributions towards travel costs of Mooters from developing countries. The reason is that the Commonwealth Foundation who had hitherto helped us, have withdrawn their support due to changes in their policy on financial grants. Hence, the teams are advised to look to alternative sources of funding to meet their travelling and related expenses.
The teams that have been, so far, nominated by the respective representatives are :
Australia and New Zealand:
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
University of Adelaide, Australia
being the highest placed teams in the Australian Law Students’ Association Moot.
South Pacific:
University of South Pacific, Laucala Campus, Fiji, the winner of the Pan- Pacific Moot
Western Africa, Southern Africa and Eastern Africa:
University of Lagos, Nigeria
University of Namibia
Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya
being the highest placed Commonwealth member country in the respective region as decided by the All Africa Human Rights Moot Court Competition.
United Kingdom:
Oxford Brookes University
the winner of the English Speaking Union’s National Mooting Competition,
The nominations are awaited from the following Regions
North America (Canada) - the winner of the Gale Cup Moot
The Caribbean ? a composite team from the representative law schools to be nominated by the regional representative.
South Asia (India) ? the winner of the national competition conducted by the CLEA Indian Chapter
South Asia (Bangladesh, Pakistan & Sri Lanka) - the winner of the regional competition.
South East Asia (Malaysia and Singapore). - A team to be nominated by the regional representative,
Presently the teams compete for the shield, formerly known as the ‘Turnbull Shield’, and now generally referred to as the ‘Commonwealth Shield’.
The winning nations and years as listed on the shield are :
1983 (in Hong Kong) - Australia
1986 (in Jamaica) - United Kingdom
1990 (in New Zealand) - United Kingdom
1993 (in Cyprus) - Canada
1996 (in Canada) - Australia
1999 (in Malaysia) - South Africa
2001 (in Sri Lanka) - United Kingdom
2003 (in Australia) - United Kingdom
2005 (in United Kingdom) ? Canada
2007 (in Kenya) ? Australia
2009 (in Hong Kong) - South Africa
2011 (in India) Sri Lanka