L to R: Donovan Hicks (Wofford College), Patrick Cleburne Fant IV (Wofford College),
Elizabeth Pittman (LaGrange College), Emiley Pagrabs (Wofford College), Katherine Whisenhunt (Wofford College),
Alexander Vary (Wofford College), and Nickolas Petersen (Wofford College)
On January 31, 2014, seven students in the IES Abroad European Union January Term Program had the unique opportunity to compete in a Moot Court on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The students, divided into two teams representing the state and the defendant, presented their case before a fictitious Court. One team argued for their applicant (a U.S. citizen, HIV positive, who wanted to stay in Europe to have a proper health treatment and whose house was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina) and moved for a breach of ECHR articles 2, 3, 8 and 13. The other team represented the State member (Odilia), who wanted to expel the defendant back to his home country.
The impressive panel of five judges included Dr. Adrian Pewestorf, Judge at the Sozialgericht (Social Court) in Freiburg; Dr. Thibaut de Berranger, Professor of Constitutional and EU Law and Director of IES Abroad Nantes; Valéria Reva, Attorney at Law in Strasbourg and former lawyer at the ECHR; and IES Abroad EU faculty, Alinea Nedea and Vasiliki (Vicki) Vouleli. Their role was to evaluate students both on their oral admissions (pleadings) and on their understanding of the ECHR mechanisms. They were free to ask questions at any time during the presentation. In the end, the state won.
In what EU Center Director, Dr. Ullrich Lohrmann, refers to as the program's "capstone experience," students prepared for one intensive week under the supervision of Coordinator Dr. Katharina Braig, LL.M. They researched their respective sides and drafted written submissions for each party, perfecting the legal analytical, research, and writing skills that attorneys must have. Dr. de Berranger describes the assignment as "a great opportunity of learning by doing," explaining that the students showed "very high oral performance, seriousness, and engagement and an impressive knowledge of the ECHR."
The January Term Program, which is entitled Themes of Comparative Law: A European Perspective, is structured around three week-long classroom modules and confronts issues of human rights, arbitration, and international dispute settlement in European countries, as well as a comparison of European and U.S. legal systems. Classroom modules are combined with relevant course-integrated field study excursions to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, a leading German law firm in Frankfurt, the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where students had a briefing with the current Polish judge at the ECHR, Krysztof Wojtyczek.
