Educational visit of a group of students from the NKUA’s School of Law to the International Court of Justice in The Hague

On 15 and 16 April 2024, a group of fourteen students from the School of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, together with postgraduate students from the University of Oxford, had the unique opportunity to visit the International Court of Justice in The Hague and attend in person a part of the preliminary objections hearings in the case ‘Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination’ (Armenia v. Azerbaijan).

The group comprised undergraduate and postgraduate students from the NKUA’s School of Law, most of whom participated in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition and the All-European International Humanitarian and Refugee Law Moot Court Competition, in which our School excelled this year. Accompanying the students were Dr Stavros Pantazopoulos and Dr Efthymios Papastavridis, who had coached the respective teams and are adjunct lecturers at the NKUA’s School of Law.

During our visit to the International Court of Justice, the students had the great honour and pleasure of meeting the Court’s Registrar, Mr Philippe Gautier, the Judge, Mr Dire Tladi, as well as Associate Legal Officers and Judicial Fellows, such as Mr Nikiforos Panagis, a graduate of the NKUA’s School of Law.

A special moment for the group was the meeting with the Counsel for Armenia, including, among others, the Dean of the NKUA’s School of Law, Professor Linos-Alexander Sicilianos. The Dean, along with the rest of the Counsel for Armenia, Dr Constantinos Salonidis, and Ms Alison Macdonald KC, talked about the current case with the NKUA’s students and their counterparts at the University of Oxford, answered numerous questions from the students, and thoroughly explained the process of preparing the case and the role of the Counsel before the International Court of Justice.

The overall experience of the students and accompanying faculty was unique, and we would like at this point to say a very warm thank you to the Dean of the NKUA’s School of Law, Professor Linos-Alexander Sicilianos, and the Rector of NKUA, Professor Gerasimos Siasos, for covering a significant portion of the group’s expenses.