Copenhagen Competition > Official rules > 2011

Official rules
Copenhagen Competition 2011

On

Access to Food

SECTION A

PARTICIPANTS

Participating Universities

Article 1

1. The competition is by invitation only.
2. Each invited university can only enter one team in the competition, even if the university has several law faculties.

Participants/Teams/Coach

Article 2

1. The participants; i.e. team members, must be law students enrolled in a law programme at one of the invited universities as of April 1, 2011 (i.e. students that graduate after this date are not disqualified). The students can be enrolled at the Bachelor or Masters level. Participants at PhD student level are excluded, as well as participants with prior full-time employment in the legal field, regardless of whether he or she was admitted to practice when holding this job. However, full-time employment as an intern or a summer job does not exclude participation.
2. Participation in a prior edition of the Copenhagen Competition disqualifies a student to become a team member.
3. Teams can consist of 2-4 participants.
4. Each team can have as many team coaches present at the Oral Round as they please. The competition, however, only covers the expenses for one coach.
   

Role Playing

Article 3

1. Each team will represent a fictitious country in the region they come from; i.e. a team from Canada will represent a large North American country with an industrialized economy status.
2. The fictitious countries are obliged to follow the "real" country's allocation as an OECD or non-OECD member; i.e. the fictitious state invented by the Canadian students will have OECD member status.
3. The teams are free to decide their own policies for their fictitious state.
4. The teams are free to decide the name of their fictitious state (all names are allowed, but must be fictitious, such as, for example, Copitia, Patentia, Utopia, Federal Economic Union of North America, or whatever the teams decide).
5. The teams must provide an introduction of the fictitious state, the name, region, economic status, OECD membership or not, as well as basic political orientation of the fictitious state they represent. See also Article 5.

SECTION B

WRITTEN ROUND

Written Round

Article 4

1. The Written Round functions as the qualification round for the Oral Round.
2. Eight teams from the Written Round will be selected for the Oral Round on the following basis:
1. Four OECD countries; and
2. Four non-OECD countries.
   

Written Submissions

Article 5

Written submissions should comprise of:

1. A vision statement that introduces the fictitious state including the name, region, economic status, OECD membership or not, as well as the political vision, policy priorities and other interests of the state (max. 2 pages - 4680 characters, excluding spaces). See also Article 3.
2. Article 5 of the "Agreement on Access to Food" (max. 3 pages - 7020 characters, excluding spaces).
3. A treaty text commentary/explanatory memorandum (max. 12 pages - 28080 characters, excluding spaces).
4. Actual text must not be included in the footnotes, and footnotes should be completed in accordance with standard citation requirements, and enable the reader to easily locate the cited sources. Footnotes are not included in the maximum number of characters.
5. An index and a list of acronyms may be included. If included they are excluded from the word count.
6. The written submission is submitted by email as an attached pdf-file.

Scoring of Written Submissions

Article 6

1. The total score for the written submission will be the average of two Judges' scores, calculated on the basis of the following formula:
1. 10 % to be allocated for the vision statement;
2. 45 % to be allocated for Article 5; and
3. 45 % to be allocated for the treaty text commentaries.
2. The Judges will give their scores on the basis of the following formula:
1. A maximum of 40 % for legal analysis (including, for example, command of the legal issues, knowledge of existing legal environment, legal analysis, research).
2. A maximum of 30 % for creativity and innovation in argumentation.
3. A maximum of 30 % for the practicality of the proposal (including, for example, is it realistic given the underlying political circumstances? Is the proposal operational and within reason?)
3. Scores will be given on a scale from 1-10, with 1 being the lowest score and 10 the highest.
4. Score sheets used by the Judges will be available on the CC homepage (not including the scores! But the individual score sheets will be e-mailed to each team after the CC is completely over).
5. Feedback sheets for the teams will be available on the CC homepage and the filled in feedback sheets will be sent to each team after the CC is completely over; i.e. after the Oral Round is finished - and only for their own written submissions.

SECTION C

ORAL ROUND

Oral Round

Article 7

1. The Oral Round consists of the four best OECD countries and four best non-OECD countries from the written round. See also Article 4.
2. The written submissions of each team competing in the Oral Round will be made available to the other competing teams, so that the other teams can become familiar with them and prepare negotiations.
3. The competing teams are not permitted to present any additional written material in the Oral Round.
4. Each negotiation session shall be considered "new" or "fresh" so the teams should not refer to their written proposal, prior sessions or prior compromises (also because the judges may differ from session to session).
5. The teams are not allowed to refer to ANY written material, such as "according to our proposed article I" but should instead explain their points verbally.
6. Teams are not supposed to stick strictly to their written positions, but may show up with new views on the issue if they have learned something new in the time gap between the written submissions and the oral round.

Negotiation Topic

Article 8

1. The negotiation topic may be narrowed down from the issues addressed in the Written Round.
2. The topic may include additional "compromises", which the organizers will determine so as to move the negotiations to a certain stage in order for the teams to proceed.
3. The negotiation topic for the oral round will be made public on the same date as the 8 teams for the oral round are announced.

Negotiation Format

Article 9

1. The total negotiation time for each Round is 1 hour and 20 minutes.
2. Each team is allowed to speak for a maximum of 20 minutes including opening statement (cf. 6 below) but excluding introduction (cf. 5 below).
3. Additional time may be granted by the Judges.
4. Each team member is allowed to speak for 10 minutes, thus only 2 team members can speak in each negotiation. Team members can freely decide from session to session who are the designated speakers, team-time keepers, etc.
5. The team members shall introduce themselves before the allocated time starts running, and indicate whether they are, for instance, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Justice, Minister of Climate or Ambassador, so that other teams and the Judges knows how to refer to their colleagues.
6. Each team should make an opening statement of max. 3 minutes (only one speaker). If the speaker exceeds the time, the Chairperson will stop the speaker and points may be deducted.
7. In the actual negotiations (after the opening statement), the teams can indicate if they want to make an intervention by raising their flag, and the Chairperson will give the floor to teams at his or her discretion (he or she may allow for cross-question-answers to cut into the list of countries that have indicated that they want the floor).
8. In the actual negotiations, only one team member can take the floor in each intervention. If another team member interrupts, the Chairperson will stop the speaker and points may be deducted.
9. In the actual negotiations, each intervention must last max. 2 minutes. If the speaker goes beyond that, the Chairperson will stop the speaker and points may be deducted.
10. Two minutes will be granted to each team for closing statements (only one speaker); (i.e. all teams therefore effectively speak for 22 minutes excluding the introduction).
11. Negotiations will take place in groups of four teams:
1. Two OECD countries; and
2. Two non-OECD countries.
12. Each team will negotiate twice in the preliminary negotiation round.
13. The two best OECD teams and the two best non-OECD teams from the preliminary round will negotiate in the final negotiation.

Scoring the Oral Round

Article 10

1. The Judges in the Oral Round will consider a range of aspects of the negotiations when scoring the teams; such as legal analysis, practicality, creativity and innovation, negotiation style, negotiation flexibility, negotiation effectiveness.
2. Scores will be given on a scale from 1-10 with 1 being the lowest score and 10 the highest.
3. The final score will be an average of all 3 Judges - calculated for EACH session.
4. Score sheets will be published on the CC homepage so the teams can see them.
5. The filled in score sheets will be e-mailed to each team after the CC is over.
6. Feedback from the oral pleadings is not formally arranged, but after the ENTIRE CC is over, the teams are welcome to speak informally with the judges.

SECTION D

JUDGES

Judges

Article 11

1. Judges will not currently hold a full or part time position at a participating university.
2. Judges will judge in their personal capacity and only express their personal views.
3. Judges will comprise of legal experts in the field, and may differ from the written to the oral round.
4. Judges for the oral round will consist primarily of experienced negotiators, such as ambassadors or high ranking officials from Intergovernmental Organizations.